


Maybe Once, Maybe Twice

by Regann



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: Generations (1994), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: First Kiss, Fix-It, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Not Star Trek Beyond Compliant, Reunions, Space Husbands, TOS cameos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-14 11:17:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1264420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regann/pseuds/Regann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While on medical leave after his miraculous recovery, Jim is plagued with dreams -- dreams of another James T. Kirk, the one from the same alternate reality that the other Spock hails from. At first, Jim's dreams are dismissed as a psychological symptom of his latest trauma, but when he starts talking about a place called the Nexus, the answer no longer seems so cut-and-dried. But disturbing dreams aren't the only thing Jim's struggling with -- there's Starfleet's concern over his mental stability, the repairs of his beloved ship and the little matter of the fact that his First Officer seems to be intent on ignoring him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to my cheerleaders, PookaSeraph and BlessedPrime, who keep me writing even when I want to stop.

Coming back from the dead, Jim realized, had turned out to be a pretty big deal.

Not that he hadn't personally thought it was a big deal -- it was a _huge_ deal. Jim had known he was dying, had felt everything inside of him slowly shut down; he had accepted the no-win situation that would end his life. He remembered Spock's dark gaze, the unexpected emotion there and then everything had went black.

But then, two weeks later, the light had dawned again.

So it wasn't that Jim wasn’t ecstatically grateful to be alive and kicking and that he didn't understand that most people didn't get an actual second chance at life. He just hadn't expected his unlikely resurrection to be such a big deal to _everyone else_.

Bones -- and, by extension Starfleet Medical -- were the biggest culprits. His friend the doctor just couldn't accept the miracle for what it was and bask in the glory of his accomplishments -- not Dr. Leonard H. McCoy. He'd kept Jim hostage at the Starfleet Medical facility for two weeks after he had regained consciousness and then had scheduled such an alarming number of follow-up appointments in the days that followed that Jim figured he might as well have stayed at Medical and saved himself the short walk every other day. Even four weeks on, almost every day of the week Jim had some kind of medical appointment. He wanted to protest but Command agreed with McCoy, much to Jim's disgruntlement. Apparently having their headstrong starship captain come back from the dead after saving Earth again was a big deal to them, too.

Jim tried not to make too much of a fuss, though, because no one at Command was saying anything about taking away his rank again. He was almost willing to endure the never-ending therapies and tests since it meant that he might get his ship back at the end of it.

_Almost_ , if not for the simple fact that twice a week, for two hours per appointment, Jim was required to meet with a damned shrink.

Dr. Helen Noel was actually much more than a "shrink," and Jim knew that. He'd read some of her work back when they had been at the Academy together and he'd met her socially on occasion. She was smart, like everyone at Starfleet, and committed to her discipline. None of that meant Jim liked therapy. It wasn't his first brush with the discipline and it wouldn't be his last, he was sure, but he was never going to _like_ it.

"It's not you," Jim had assured her on their first visit when he made his objections known. "But this hasn't ever worked for me."

"Have you ever died before?" she'd asked dryly.

"No," he'd admitted. "But I've lived through worse shit than radiation poisoning, if you'll pardon my language."

"You're not the first patient I've had that is resistant to the process," she had said, not even batting a heavily-lashed eye at his rancor for her profession. "But you are on indefinite medical leave until Medical and Command are assured that there is no ill effects from your unorthodox resurrection. These meetings are part of that evaluation."

"Really? I wasn't aware," Jim had said with a roll of his eyes.

"How are you coping with your current status?" she'd asked, ignoring the jibe.

Jim had actually answered that one. "It's not ideal. Truthfully, I hate it. But I'm back to _Captain_ instead of _Commander_ and my ship's signed-up for a 10-month refit after what Khan put her through. I guess if I have to go through this, now's the time."

"And your crew?" she'd asked next. "What are they doing while the Enterprise is grounded?"

Jim had figured she probably knew the answer but he'd answered anyway; it was a safer topic than his _feelings_. "Well Bones -- uh, Dr. McCoy -- he's staying on at Medical, mostly so he can continue to be a pain in my ass."  
"Monitor your recovery, you mean?"

"Same thing when it comes to Bones," Jim had said. "My Chief Engineer is heading up the refit so he's hanging out between here and there. A lot of them are taking temporary assignments on other ships, which makes sense. Especially some of the more ambitious ones. No need to waste a year of their service idling." Uhura, Sulu and Chekov had all done so, and Jim had tapped out great recommendations for each of them. He hoped they'd come back when the Enterprise was ready but he wouldn't have stood in their way for the world.

Dr. Noel had continued to let Jim talk about things he could talk about for the rest of that first session -- his crew, his ship, his completely rational distaste for the medical establishment. Her consideration had meant that he came to the next two sessions without the same attitude he'd thrown at her in that first one, although there was only so much he could subdue. In many ways, Jim _was_ his attitude.

"How are you feeling today, Jim?" she asked as they started their latest session. The sun was bright outside of her window and it haloed around her dark hair.

"Same old, same old," he said. He lifted his hand and flexed his fingers. "Got a clean bill of health for my motor skills today. Everything's working like it did before."

"That's good," she said, fingers tapping on her padd. "What else have you done today?"

Jim settled back in his chair, trying to tamp down on his tension. She always started easy and then circled in for the kill. "Nothing much. Breakfast, a run, checked in with some of my crew to see how they're doing."

"Was one of them your first officer?" Dr. Noel asked. "I noticed you haven't mentioned him in our past sessions, even though we've touched on almost everyone else."

"No, one of them wasn't my first officer," he said, trying to keep from frowning. But the thought of Spock made him want to frown -- both in general and because Dr. Noel had asked about him at all. He wondered why she'd thought to ask and decided if he traced the question back to Bones, he was going to kill his best friend. "Like most of the Vulcans in the 'fleet, he was offered extensive family leave after the destruction of their planet but he opted not to take it then, so he's cashing in now. Commander Spock is currently incommunicado on New Vulcan."

Jim wouldn't admit it out loud but he was disappointed that Spock had disappeared almost as soon as he'd woken up. One minute, he'd been there, seemingly grateful that Jim had survived and the next Jim had received a notification that Spock was taking family leave and returning to New Vulcan indefinitely. He hadn't resigned his commission but he had a lot of leave saved up and Jim had a feeling that Spock didn't plan on seeing Jim again anytime soon. 

He had another one, too: that it was his fault. As far as great ideas went, the advantage of a dying confession was that one didn't have to live with the consequences. It was just Jim's luck that he'd wasted his last breath to almost confess to Spock how much he cared, how much more than friendship it was, only to survive to live with the consequences. 

Jim firmly pushed his turmoil regarding Spock and his Spock-related feelings out of his mind and worked on making sure his expression was blank and devoid of any triggers that might keep Dr. Noel on the subject of his first officer.

"I see," was all she said and Jim breathed a sigh of her relief when she didn't ask anything else about Spock, although he was far from happy with her next topic of conversation. "How have your nightmares been?"

Jim scowled. "I'm going to wring his red neck," he said. "Isn't it against my privacy rights for Bones to be telling you things?"

Dr. Noel gave him one of those cool, arch looks she was so good at. " _Dr. McCoy_ and I are within our rights to consult about your case as needed," she informed him. "But, point of fact, he didn't mention them to me. However, they are in his case notes from your time at Medical, as part of your referral package, which you agreed to have shared with me when we started meeting."

"Oh," he said, still scowling. 

"So let me ask again -- how are your nightmares? According to these reports, they were of significant violence and frequency when you first woke up."

"Yeah." Jim tried to repress a shudder. He supposed he wasn't a bad tradeoff, horrible nightmares for continued life, but they had been rough in the beginning. Once, Bones had even had to restrain him before he'd gotten him awake. Most of them hadn't even been about Khan, either; it was as if everything horrible he'd ever dealt with had come back to bite him in the ass. "They're not like that anymore," he said. "They tapered off before I was released from Medical -- Bones wouldn't have let me be on my own otherwise."

"No nightmares at all now? Or just less frequent, less vivid?"

"I get a nightmare every so often but nothing like before," he said. "And there've been a few weird dreams? Not nightmares. Just dreams. But weird."

"How so?" she asked, making another notation of her padd.

"They're hard to remember afterward but it's...I get the feeling that I'm watching myself? But not. Nothing earth-shattering, just weird." Jim shrugged. "Honestly, I don't see why it really matters. They're just dreams."

Dr. Noel studied him for a moment with her dark, round eyes. "We have extensive evidence that we humans do a lot of our memory processing in our dreams," she said. "Those hours we're sleeping, our brains are still working. What we remember of that time is often fragmented or strange at first glance, but there's usually something we're trying to tell ourselves. Does that make sense?"

"Maybe," he conceded.

"I know you're resistant to this kind of work," she said. "So I'd like to try this approach -- working through some of these weird dreams you have? Maybe an indirect path will help you relax."

"If I can't remember them, how are we supposed to work through them?" he asked, skeptical.

"You'll have to do a little homework," Dr. Noel explained. "Start a journal where you jot down whatever you do remember as soon as you can. Which actually brings me to something else." She laid aside her padd and went over to her desk, reaching into a lower drawer. "And this _is_ something that Leonard let slip over lunch. Your love of antique paper products." Dr. Noel held out a small item, a stack of paper several inches thick, bound together between covers of leather -- a notebook. Although Earth was almost paperless, there were a few enthusiasts as well as alien cultures that still preferred the reality of real paper. San Francisco had several shops that sold them. Jim noticed she also held out an old-fashioned ink pen. "I thought this might put you in the mood for the project."

Jim slowly took the notebook and pen. The cover was a soft, supple synthetic, meant to mimic ancient leather. "I didn't think you were supposed to buy me pretty things, Doc."

"Actually Leonard did," she said with a smirk that showed off the dimples in her cheeks. "Give it a try, Jim. We might figure out what your 'weird' dreams are trying to tell you."

"And if they're telling me this is a waste of time?" he asked.

Dr. Noel actually snorted. "If that's actually what they're saying, then we'll know," she said. "But I have a feeling there's more going on here."

Jim tightened his grip on the notebook, feeling grounded by the weight of it. "I don't think it'll work but...sure," he finally said. "I'll try."

She smiled. "That's all I ask."

It was Jim's turn to snort.

**

For all his palpable disbelief, Jim didn't see the harm in humoring Dr. Noel, at least not on this point. It would certainly be easier to talk about some random impressions from his dreamscape than it would be to endure more of her gruesome interest in how he felt about _dying_. And maybe he'd dream about something racy enough to bring a blush to the good doctor's face at their next session. Jim kind of hoped he did.

As she requested and Bones reiterated during breakfast the next day, Jim kept the notebook by his bedside, right where he tended to leave his comm in the evenings when he slept. That first night, if he dreamed, he didn't remember enough of it to even admit to write something down. Instead, he just jotted the date and scrawled "nothing" beneath it. Even if it wasn't what she wanted, Jim could at least show good faith. Hopefully that would be enough to keep Dr. Noel and Bones off his back for a while about the progress he was or wasn't making in therapy.

The second night, though, Jim was bone-tired after a strenuous work-out at the gym and he was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow. One minute, he was happily floating into the blessed darkness of sleep and the next...he was somewhere else.

Wherever he was was cool, a crispness in the air he didn't associate with San Francisco. He could see tall pines all around him and snow-capped mountains in the distance -- he definitely knew it wasn't Iowa, either. Jim turned a slow circle, taking everything in, until his appraisal had him glancing down the small path he stood on, at the end of which stood another a person. A man.

Behind the man was a cabin nestled against the idyllic background and there was stacks of wood all around him. Jim watched as he swung his ax, splitting a log neatly into two. The man was older -- probably in his 60s, if Jim had to guess -- with short, graying hair and a sturdy frame that had probably once been fit but was inching toward portly with age. Still, he seemed hale from the easy way he wielded his ax, not even winded as Jim watched him split another log. The most incongruous thing about him was his clothing which looked to be some kind of uniform -- black pants with a stripe detail, a pristine white shirt and a fitted vest in red and black. A crimson jacket lay across one stack of logs as if cast aside when the older man had started his task. 

Jim didn't get a chance to announce his presence before the man glanced up and was clearly startled to find someone staring back at him. His swing wavered and he brought the ax down without striking the wood, instead letting it falling to the ground beside him. He narrowed his eyes and moved toward Jim, eyes hard and staring. With a better view of the man's face, Jim noticed he looked vaguely familiar, as if Jim had seen him before but couldn't recall where.

The man stopped when he was within striking distance of Jim. "Where did you come from?" the man asked and Jim thought his voice sounded familiar.

Jim turned as if to gesture along the path before he realized that he didn't actually have any idea where he came from. "I just got here."

The man took a step closer and Jim tried not to step back. It didn't make any sense to be intimidated by an old guy who might've had his height but didn't have youth on his side but there was something there, a force of personality that shone in the hazel eyes that sized him up. 

"Is this some kind of temporal nonsense?" the man murmured to himself. "Of course it has to be. Why else would I be faced with a younger version of _myself_?" He looked at Jim again. "And you don't know how you got here?"

Jim just dumbly shook his head because, _holy shit_ , he suddenly realized why the man looked familiar: he was looking at himself, only about three decades in the future. He could see the resemblance in the wider, rounder features now that the obvious had been pointed out to him. Except for the hazel eyes, the man was a spitting image of how Jim could look in his sixth decade. Jim still didn't know what to say, except he decided he had to be dreaming -- this only made sense if he were dreaming. He tried hard to commit the details he saw to his memory, so he could maybe figure out why he had decided to dream about meeting himself.

One thing he noticed was that the older Jim's air of peace and serenity had all but evaporated. He had turned away from him and was taking in his surroundings much as Jim had, casting this way and that, his sharp movements filled with a crackling impatience. "Maybe that's not the right question," the older Kirk said, still looking around. "The better question might be how did I get back _here_? I left." He turned back toward Jim, staring off into the distance as confusion shrouded his features. "Didn't I? I thought I had. So what I am doing back here?"

"You're -- I'm -- someone's dreaming," Jim pointed out. "It's all in your -- my -- our head."

"This is something altogether different from a dream, kid," the older Kirk said. "Still doesn't explain what you're doing here."

"Watch it, Gramps, with the nicknames," Jim said before he could stop himself. His older self grinned and Jim felt a knot of tension ease.

"Noted," he said crisply, a commanding officer's voice. "That doesn't change the fact that this isn't a dream. This is...eternity wrapped in a moment wrapped in a fantasy. It's dream-like but much too real, even while it weaves falsehoods around us." He let his eyes wander back to the cabin. "I never even _knew_ an Antonia."

"Huh?" Jim asked.

"It's a cosmic happiness pill, spores and lotus," the old man said. "It makes you forget and I..." The other Kirk lifted a hand to his brow, frowning as he seemed to search for the right words. Or, maybe, Jim thought, for whatever 'it' had made him forget. 

Jim was going to ask but even as he opened his mouth, he felt darkness swimming around him and the older Kirk faded away until he was nothing more than the white gleam of his tunic and even soon that faded. The next thing Jim knew he was gasping for breath, jerking upright in his bed, in his apartment in San Francisco. 

"Holy shit," Jim said, running a hand through his hair as he checked the chronometer. It was almost dawn. "That was...weird." He wondered what dreaming about a crazy version of one's future self could even mean.

Before the details faded away like his older self had as his mind had let go of the dream, Jim grabbed for his notebook and furiously began to write.

**

Jim knew that he wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep, so he dragged himself out of the bed and into the shower. Once he was dressed, it was still barely dawn; Jim decided that it was the perfect time to sit down and record a few messages.

After the perfunctory ones -- to his mom, to Sam, and Scotty about a change on one of his schematics -- Jim deliberated before he flipped his comm to visual and settled down to record a longer, happier message.

"Hey there, old friend," he said, smiling as he thought of its recipient. "How's it shaking on New Vulcan? Despite Bones's best tries, I'm still getting the status reports from HQ and they seem to think the colony is doing well but who can trust the brass? I'd rather know what you think about it."

Jim continued to ramble, content to fill the older Spock in on all the insignificant things about his life that the old Vulcan always seemed interested in. He wasn't sure if it was just nostalgia on the old guy's part or some genuine affection, but he always felt like his first officer's alternate reality counterpart cared about what he had to say. That Spock had been the first person who had really believed that he could be a starship captain and he had given him the courage to try back when the Narada was heading toward Earth. For that alone, Ambassador Spock would always be one of Jim's favorite people.

"So my shrink -- her name is Dr. Noel, did you know her in the other time? -- she's got me doing this thing where I'm writing down my dreams." Jim shrugged, much like he did when he and the doctor spoke about it. "I don't really think it's going to do much good but -- why not? You know? I hate this whole psychology business period, no matter what Bones says."

Jim stifled a yawn and shot the camera a sheepish grin. "Well, enough of that. I'm going to meet Bones for breakfast again, so he can use cluck over me and check all my vitals for the millionth time. I hope things are well with you. Hope to hear from you soon." Jim saved it and sent it.

He was about to do just what he had said -- get ready to meet Bones -- but something stopped him. He looked at the darkened computer screen for a moment before he reached for his padd instead. From the message options, he chose "text only" and quickly typed out a few lines, inwardly cringing at every word choice.

_Spock,_

_It's been a few weeks since you left for New Vulcan. I hope things are going well for your father and for the colony. I hope things are going well with you, too, and you're getting the rest you need. I know you didn't specify a return date but I want you to know that your position with me and the Enterprise are safe as long as you want them to be. Let me know if you need anything._

_\- JTK_

Jim re-read it, cringed some more and finally sent it before he could chicken out. He was sure it probably made him sound just as pathetic and desperate as he was, but Jim couldn't help himself -- he wanted to reach out. Spock had given no indication that something was wrong and then he'd just left, no word and no explanation. Jim knew his extremely intelligent first officer had probably figured out that Jim's feelings for him weren't exactly about friendship and was embarrassed -- or more -- by the fact. It was even more awkward given that Uhura was on the ship, too. But Jim hoped Spock would realize that Jim could live with it, just as he had before. Nothing had to change just because Jim's secret had been found out.  
Jim's pensive mood followed him to breakfast at a little cafe around the corner, a place that Bones loved because it served these quiche things he couldn't get enough of, even with Jim teasing him about watching his caloric intake. This morning, though, Jim didn't bother, his mind still light-years away -- perhaps on New Vulcan, perhaps even on the dreamscape he'd encountered the night before.

It also had Bones reading for his medical tricorder before Jim had even finished his first cup of coffee.

"Bones!" he said, waving his friend off. "At least pretend like you know how to act in public."

"I'm acting like a concerned medical professional," Bones snipped back, checking his readings. "There's nothing wrong with you, although it looks like you might've needed a few more hours of sleep."

"I had some weird dreams," he said vaguely. "Which I'm now writing down in a book thanks to you."

"It was gonna be a present for you anyway," he said. "I thought Helen might as well use it." His earnest, concerned gaze caught Jim's. "What's wrong, Jim?"

"Nothing," he insisted, stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth. He chewed slowly, glad to ignore speaking in favor of eating. Once he swallowed, he added, "Just been thinking about some stuff."

"Ah," Bones said. His eyebrow rose. "And might it be _Vulcan_ stuff on your mind?"

"I hate you," Jim said. "I wish you'd never puked on me."

"Lying is unbecoming of a gentleman," Bones chided. "You're just mad that someone knows you as well as I do."

It was true. Jim sighed. "I sent him a message this morning. Just...you know. To let him know that I'm holding his position for him if he wants it, no matter how long his leave is."

"Jimmy boy," Bones said, shaking his head. "You have got it bad."

Jim was pretty sure that was also true but it wasn't a conversation he wanted to have. "No time to dally, Bones," he said, rising from his chair, leaving behind some of his breakfast. "I've got a date with your girlfriend Helen this morning!"

"She is not my girlfriend!" Bones's outrage reached Jim's ears just as he stepped out on the street. He did have an appointment with Dr. Noel but it wasn't for a few more hours, so he wandered around the streets a little, taking in the sights of the repair work from the damage that Khan had wrought. If it wasn't for that damage, for those reminders, it would be easy to feel like it had all been its own crazy dream, except for the hole in Jim's chest when he thought about Captain Pike. He had desperately needed a mentor, someone like Chris to believe in him and guide him. He still had the elder Spock for the first but there was no one he really had to be the guiding hand Chris had been to help him on the thorny path of captaincy. Considering how royally he'd screwed up the first time, he was scared to see how badly he'd fail with no one to watch his back.

Given the direction of Jim's thoughts all morning, he couldn't help but dread his appointment with Dr. Noel but she wasn't too intrusive, for which he was grateful. He told her about his weird dream and she hmmed a bit and made notes, although she didn't offer any real opinion on what it meant. She called it progress, though, and said she hoped he continued to have success in remembering what he dreamed.

Jim didn't dream anything he could remember for the next few days and Bones tried harder than usual to distract him with his personal brand of camaraderie and encouragement. His personal brand was frightening as far as Jim was concerned, but he appreciated the effort. No matter what minor irritations that cropped up between them, he knew that Bones was still the best friend he could ask for.

One night after he and Bones had spent half the evening drinking, Jim collapsed into bed, expecting another night of blissful slumber. What he got instead was opening his eyes onto a red sky, a wall of heat that hit so hard he sucked in a breath.

"Oh, god," he said with feeling, feeling sweat break out across his forehead. He took in the severe desert landscape that surrounded them, the stones cut into a mountainside that led to some kind of... _temple_ far above his head. "It looks like Vulcan," he said to himself, thinking of the holovids he'd seen.

"It doesn't just look like it, Junior," a voice said from behind him. "It _is_."

Jim recognized the voice, even before he turned to see his future self standing there, still in the same get-up as before. Now that he was wearing the jacket, it was even more apparent that it was some kind of uniform -- some kind of Starfleet uniform, in fact, given the insignia pinned to his chest.

"Vulcan, huh?" Jim asked, looking around. "What are we doing here?"

"I'm not sure," the older one said. "I know this place. It's a place of sadness and hope. But..." 

"It's not a place of anything anymore," Jim said. It was just a further illustration of how weird dreams could be. Why would he dream of Vulcan, now that it was destroyed? Why would he dream himself old there, when it couldn't exist in his future?

"I must be here for a reason," the older one mused. "We must be here for a reason. But what is that reason?" He wandered around a little, reaching out to touch rock of the mountain that rose above them. Jim noticed that his future self's graying hair was spiked with sweat, curling over his forehead from the same heat that clawed at Jim's lungs. "I feel like someone's waiting for me," he explained, glancing back at Jim. "But I can't remember who or why. But someone waits for me...at the appointed place." His eyes -- starkly hazel in the red light, almost gold -- jerked upwards. "Who is he? Where is he?"

"There's nobody here but us," Jim told him. He wiped the sweat from his face. "This is a horrible place for a dream conversation."

The older Kirk quirked a brow, focus now on Jim. "You still believing you're dreaming?"

"I _am_ dreaming!" Jim reminded -- himself. "Although I have no idea why I'm on Vulcan or talking to you or -- why you have hazel eyes when you're clearly supposed to be _me_."

Kirk squinted, studying him. "Your eyes are blue," he said. "Yes, that is an interesting discrepancy. Why would you appear with blue eyes?"

"I was born with them," Jim retorted. "And what did call me? _Junior_. What did I tell you about that before?"

"Well I have to call you something," Kirk said. "Jim, James or Kirk would just make things confusing. Don't you agree?"

Jim straightened a little. "How about Captain?"

His future self laughed. "Oh to be so young and idealistic again." 

Jim rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter what you call me because I'm going to wake up soon and it won't matter anyway."

The amusement faded from the old man's face. "If this is a dream, your dream, I hope you wake to better things than I've found here," he told Jim. He looked back up into the red sky. "Part of me is missing and I can't figure out why. I don't even know what. I just know it's out there somewhere and I'm here."

"Dr. Noel is going to a field day with his," Jim sighed. 

"Dr. _Helen_ Noel?" his other self asked.

"Great, now I'm dreaming her into my business," Jim was complaining as he watched the incredulous face of his older self fade away as reality -- and a hangover -- slammed into Jim. 

He held still for a moment, collecting his thoughts and waiting for his head to stop pounding. "Weird," he said aloud, even as he reached for his journal. He wrote down what he remembered, the details, the conversation. He studied what he'd written and then added, _I don't know what he might represent about my subconscious self and this might just be my ego talking but...I think I kind of like the old guy._

**


	2. Chapter 2

At the next session with Dr. Noel, Jim mentioned the latest of his weird dreams, although he didn't mention the part where she'd come up in the conversation between him and his future self. Some embarrassments needed to be avoided at all cost.

"You dreamed of Vulcan?" she asked.

"That's what I said," Jim told her. "I've only been there the once but I've seen vids and yeah, it looked like Vulcan to me."

She made notes on her padd. "I think it's interesting, don't you?" 

"Maybe?"

She leveled her gaze on him. "Jim, can you think of a reason you might've dreamed about Vulcan?"

"Not really," he said, suddenly absorbed in tracing the thread pattern in the knee of his jeans. He knew it drove Bones crazy that he dressed like the repeat offender he was once when he was out of uniform but the familiarity of it called to him. 

"Do you maybe have something on your mind that relates to Vulcan?"

If, Jim conceded, one considered a certain half-Vulcan as something that related to Vulcan, then the answer to that question would be yes. But Jim was hardly going to share that little tidbit with the good doctor -- nothing he needed more than to tell anyone else about that humiliation. "Not particularly," he finally answered.

She paused. "Do you perhaps have some guilt that you haven't addressed?" she asked. "Maybe to do with the Narada and Vulcan's destruction?"

Jim frowned. "No?" he said. "I mean, I feel horrible about Vulcan, horrific, there's not a big enough word for how terrible that was. Do I wish I could've saved them all? Sure. But do I harbor some feelings that it was my fault or something?" He shook his head, thinking of his old Vulcan friend. "There's a lot of misplaced guilt associated with what happened to Vulcan but none of its mine."

"Very well," she said, making more notes. "Do you have any ideas on why you're dreaming of Vulcan or a future version of yourself?"

"Isn't that what they pay you the big bucks for?" Jim said. "I could stay at home and interpret my own dreams."

"But not while meeting Starfleet Medical's requirements for your reinstatement," Dr. Noel said, surprising him with the snark. He liked her better when she was snarky. "I have some ideas but I'd be interested in yours."

"I really don't have any," he said. "The old guy seems pretty out of place? And he doesn't even really seem like how I'd imagine myself to be in the future. He looks like me but he's not _me_."

"Hmm." Dr. Noel tapped her stylus against the arm of her chair, as if gathering her thoughts. "We haven't talked about it much but we know the reason you're here is because you died, Jim. Not just clinically, for a few seconds. You were dead. That has to come with some emotional consequences whether you want to admit it or not."

"And you think that's why I'm dreaming about the old guy?"

"I think it's possible that you've been forced to come to terms with the reality of your mortality in a very blunt way," she said.

"You've read my file, right?" Jim asked. "Because that's not exactly new for me." He wasn't going to sit around and talk about Tarsus IV with her, but it wasn't as if Khan and everything that had happened was the most horrific of things he'd lived through. Being alive on Tarsus IV those months after the famine had made dying for a few minutes seem like a piece of cake. Most of his memories in the hospital had been more about that, in fact.

"I am aware of your past experiences, yes," Dr. Noel said. "But just because you don't understand the ramifications yet doesn't mean some aren't lurking around in your psyche. People sometimes face aging and death and the realization that we're all going to die very differently."

Jim settled back on the loveseat thing he always sat on when he came to the doctor's office. He mulled over her words. "So you think I'm having my midlife crisis already? I'm barely over 25, Doc."

"Those are just some ideas I had," she said. "No one will know what your dreams mean better than you, Jim." She glanced over at the chronometer. "For next time, keep recording any unusual dreams you have and give some thought on what you might think they mean. We can discuss your theories next time, too."

Jim didn't expect that he'd have any theories before their next session -- or ever -- but he agreed and slunk out of the office. Talking with Dr. Noel that day had left him edgy and restless, so he visited the gym, working through his emotional agitation until physical exhaustion took the edge off. He was still meeting with his physical therapy team once a week, but it was more to fulfill his Medical requirements than it was any real need for help. He still wasn't quite 100% on his strength and stamina but he was getting there, probably much more quickly than he was reaching any milestone in his psychological therapy sessions.

As he waited for his replicated dinner, Jim's mind went back over what he and Dr. Noel had discussed that morning, even back to Tarsus, even though they hadn't discussed it. He thought about how most of his worrisome dreams in the wake of his resurrection had actually been about the things he had experienced on Tarsus, things he had thought he'd put behind him. Laying in that bed in Medical, Jim had worried that the worst thing that coming back from the dead had done to him was shake all of that loose, bringing to the forefront of his mind things he'd banished for his own self-preservation. 

Thinking about buried memories, an idea of where his older self came from hit Jim's mind like lightning.

Back on Delta Vega, when the old alternate Spock had mind-melded with Jim, the accidental transference hadn't been limited to his emotions. Beneath the memories Spock had wanted to impart, a few other things had snuck by -- namely, the other Spock's all-consuming love for the other James T. Kirk. Without his consent, Spock had later explained, the bond he had once shared with his captain had been drawn in by the similarity in their minds and Spock had been too emotionally compromised to shield against it. Jim hadn't recalled any actual memories of the other Jim Kirk coming through in that meld but maybe they had, just buried so deeply beneath Spock's grief and pain that they had went straight to his subconscious. Maybe that was why there was an older Kirk in his head, one who wasn't really like him. Maybe it was a shadow of the other Captain Kirk that he was manifesting in his dreams.

When Jim sat down at his computer this time, he didn't reach for the message console. Instead, he started the process of connection across subspace to New Vulcan, then waited patiently while it was made before a friendly old face appeared on the other end.

"Jim," the old Vulcan said warmly. 

"Hey," Jim said, smiling. The other Spock always had that effect on him. "I'm not disturbing you, am I?"

"Never," he assured Jim. Light streamed into the cozy room behind him, reminding Jim that it was mid-morning on New Vulcan. "I was preparing a response to your message, in fact. I hope all is well?"

"No, it's fine, fine," he said. "Everything's fine or as fine as it can be when I'm grounded. Are you sure you're not busy? Not everyone gets to be lazy like me."

"You're recovering, Jim," Spock said. "That is entirely different from being lazy."

"That's not why I called," he said. "Well, actually, it kind of is. My recovery, I mean."

He didn't frown but there was a slight furrow in his brow. "Are you unwell?"

"No, nothing like that," Jim assured him. "You know I mentioned in my message that I've been going to Dr. Noel? And we're talking about my dreams?"

Spock nodded. "Yes?"

"So in my dreams, I spend a lot of time talking to this...older version of me," Jim explained in a rush. "Which I thought was pretty weird and I couldn't even figure out why. But then I started thinking about Delta Vega and..."

"You think I imparted more memories than I thought," Spock surmised. 

"Something like that," Jim agreed. "Some of the details are off -- just not the way I figured I'd imagine myself in a few decades. Then I got to thinking that maybe it's because it's not me, it's him."

"What kind of details?" the old Vulcan asked.

"Well, his eyes aren't blue, for one," Jim said. "They're hazel. And then one time I dreamed that we were on Vulcan? Near a mountain with a temple at the top? But I've never been to Vulcan. And then there was a log cabin? Just weird stuff like that."

Spock was silent for a moment, but Jim thought he saw a flash of sorrow in those dark eyes before it was carefully shuttered away. "I must beg your forgiveness, Jim," he finally said. "Your hypothesis seems sound, as those are details that fit with my own universe and its James Kirk."

"Our eyes are different colors?" Jim snorted. "How did Nero manage _that_?"

"It is an interesting divergence," Spock said with a glint of amused humor. 

"But unimportant, I know," Jim said. "So I guess that's where he's coming from, then. I don't seem to have any specific memories, just...an old Jim Kirk wandering around in my dreams." Jim grinned. "Maybe I'm just jealous that Spock got to meet you and I didn't get to meet him. From the way you...I get the impression from you that he must've been a great guy."

"He was very dear to me," Spock said, giving voice to what Jim hadn't. "And, yes, he was an extraordinary man."

"No pressure there," Jim joked but his humor faded. For a Vulcan, this Spock's face was sometimes an open book. "You miss him."

"Terribly," Spock admitted immediately. That was another way in which this Spock was so different from the young one or any other Vulcans Jim knew. He didn't try to pretend that his emotions didn't exist. "But it's been...many years since I lost him. It is an ache but it's not a new one. We are old companions now."

Jim cleared his throat. "I don't mean to pry but you never said. How _he_ died. May I...?"

"I won't give you all the details," Spock told him. "But I am willing to speak of it in general terms. Much like your recent ordeal, Jim sacrificed his life to save a ship and its crew, even though he had retired from service. He was lost when the hull breached."

Jim winced at the image. Of all the ways to go, that wasn't one he'd choose. "I'm sorry," Jim said, although he couldn't say what he was sorry for. That he'd asked? That the other Jim was dead? That he would never be able to fill the void that the man had left in his old friend's heart? Maybe all of those and more.

"It is the consequence of living to such an advanced age," he said. "That we lose so many of those we love."

Not for the first time, he wished there was something he could do to ease some of the loss that existed in this venerable being, one who meant so much to him despite the short time of their acquaintance. "Thanks for answering my questions," he said. "I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing."

"One day I hope to convince you that our conversations are not an inconvenience," Spock told him. "I look forward to them a great deal."

"You flatterer, you," Jim smiled. He paused. "Hey Spock?"

"Yes, Jim?"

"Have you seen your younger self lately? He took leave and headed to New Vulcan but I haven't heard from him in a while."

"I saw him briefly last week. He was with our father," Spock said. "Other than that, I am ignorant of him."

"It's fine, I was just wondering." Jim forced his fingers into the traditional Vulcan hand sign. "Live long and prosper, old friend."

Spock merely nodded his head. "Same to you, old friend. And Jim?"

"Yeah?"

Spock offered a small smile, full of so much. "I believe that my Jim would've enjoyed meeting you very much."

Jim returned the smile before he disconnected the connection. With a sigh, he headed toward his bedroom to get ready for bed. He wondered if tonight he'd once again dream of the old Spock's memories of his Jim Kirk and, if he did, if it would become clearer as to why he was doing it to begin with. 

**

Spock stared at his computer screen for several minutes after the young Jim's face faded from it, lost in his own thoughts. As he stated to the young man, calls from this alternate version of his own captain were always welcome even if there was always an edge to the pleasure of the exchange. Seeing that young face always reminded Spock of that which he had lost, even if that loss was rarely far from his mind. Moreover, it reminded him of the time he and his Jim had wasted as youth, circling each other as they denied their feelings. Spock rarely felt such pangs of regret as he did now when he thought of the opportunity these younger versions of he and his t'hy'la had: they were already locked in the other's orbit, many years earlier than he and Jim had been. They had that much more _time_.

Not, Spock conceded, that it seemed as if they were making use of it. Spock had lived among humans -- especially that one -- for too long not to recognize the signs of uncertainty and longing on Jim's face, in his voice when he'd asked about the other Spock. He, at least, had already seen his feelings grow past friendship into the promise of something more. It pained Spock to see this young Jim obviously left to his longing, reaching out with no one to meet him half-way.

Spock had made a great effort not to interfere with the trajectory of his younger self's path, at least not beyond urging him to stay in Starfleet. Knowing that this new version of him was involved romantically with Nyota Uhura, he had only mentioned the chance of friendship he could find with Jim, instead of explaining the ways in which his Jim had transformed him through the love they shared. Spock had assumed that with enough time and exposure, the universe would sort them out; he could not believe it was coincidence that the old Enterprise crew had come together out of what seemed mere serendipity.

But this Jim Kirk had died at Khan's hands, according to his own accounts, and Spock's counterpart had reacted by putting light-years between them. To others, including Jim, that looked like the action of someone who didn't care, who had no ties to the man who had been miraculously returned to him. But Spock had been that young man, or at least an approximation; he had been young and desperate to be Vulcan while his human half raged with the love it felt for its perfect mate. And Spock had been older and supposedly wiser, but he had still chosen the most cowardly of all actions: he had left Starfleet and went to Gol, thinking that pure logic could save him from the wants of his own soul. And there he had learned how futile his actions had been.

This sudden retreat to New Vulcan, to Spock, sounded like much the same thing. He himself knew how difficult it was to face the death of Jim Kirk; he wondered if that reality had sent his younger counterpart on his own desperate mission to purge the ties they might've already begun to make to each other.

As he rose from his computer, Spock thought about his "old companion," the ache in his soul that part of him was forever missing since Jim was gone. In his words to the young Jim, Spock had not lied but he had offered a kindness in inferring that Jim's loss had somehow lessened in the century since they'd been separated. He hadn't wanted to tell him that it hadn't, not for one day. 

Spock wondered if it would also count as a kindness if he were to warn his younger self that he could promise, from experience, that running away would not ease his pain – that, in fact, there was no distance great enough to lessen that pull, not even if that distance was death.

**

Jim was dreaming again.

He knew immediately that he wasn't dreaming of Vulcan again because the sky was a bright, clear blue. But he was on a mountain top, it looked like, one that looked down over uninterrupted miles of green trees. It was a breathtaking sight but Jim felt an unexplained frisson of fear as he took it all in. 

That was when he noticed his older self, the other Jim, standing a few rocks above him.

"Hello again," Jim said, scrambling up the incline to reach his older self. The other Kirk was still dressed in his red Starfleet uniform and his hazel eyes stared off in the distance. "I suppose you know where this is?"

"Veridian III," came the reply. He cut his eyes toward Jim. "Although perhaps I shouldn't have told you that."

"Why?" Jim wanted to know, lifting a hand to shade his eyes against the glare of the sun above them. 

"Because this is where I died," Kirk explained. "You shouldn't know too much about your future."

Jim knew the confusion was probably writ across his face but he _was_ confused. "I thought you died in space, saving your ship?"

Kirk nodded. "I thought I did, too," he said. "Until I woke up in the Nexus."

"The Nexus?"

"That's what the other captain -- Picard -- called it," Kirk said. "It was some kind of temporal gateway into another universe or something close to that. And I was there and it seemed like I'd never been anywhere else. And a minute passed and then Picard was there and told me...everything. About the Nexus and how 80 years had gone by. And I came out of it, with him, to stop a madman." Kirk broke off, eyes searching the rocks below their position. "I died -- right there," he said, pointing. "I _died_. Or so I thought. But now I'm back here, still inside. So maybe none of that happened."

"I'm still confused on the point of what the hell is the Nexus," Jim admitted. "Excuse me but huh?"

"I only know what Picard could tell me and what I've realized since," Kirk told him. "But there's no time or place here and it apparently manufactures whatever it can to make you forget about life outside of it. It distracts you. I suppose one of those is reason enough that I keep talking to my past self."

"But you said you died?" Jim asked, a chill going up his spine.

Kirk nodded. "I remember it. It was...frightening. And maybe peaceful, too. It was..." Kirk paused. "It was the unknown. Words fail me beyond that."

"I died, too," Jim heard himself saying. 

The other Kirk gave him a questioning, curious look. "Did you now?"

Jim nodded. "It was horrible," he confessed. "Radiation poisoning and it was so unfair and I _cried_. Everything hurt. Then everything was dark and it was...smothery. Then Bones somehow managed to bring me back."

"Good old Bones," Kirk said, smiling. "A real miracle worker. Even if he was little too fond of his hypos."

"I know, right?" Jim said with feeling. "I think he's lying about needing them half the time."

"He worries," Kirk said, reaching out to pat Jim on the shoulder. For the first time, Jim noticed that he was wearing what he went to sleep in, a T-shirt and a pair of old sweats. "It's just a sign that he cares." He felt silent, still contemplating the empty sky.

Jim joined him but he couldn't take the silence. "So you died but you didn't," he said. "I died but I didn't. And now we're meeting...in dreams? But you think you're in something called the Nexus, even though you died outside of it."

"And you died of radiation poisoning before you were...oh, thirty," Kirk added. "Which never happened to me. So I suppose you're an alternate younger version of me? Which seems a strange thing for the Nexus to create."

"Look, I'm not part of this," he said, waving his hands around to encompass everything. "Whatever this is. All I know is that over the past few weeks, I go to sleep and sometimes I end up here, talking to you. But I'm not in the Nexus. I'm on Earth."

"A few weeks," Kirk mused. "You know, the first 78 years passed like minutes. Then there was Picard and that was...a few hours? Then I was back at the beginning and it was like I'd never left." He turned a little, pinning Jim with an intense, narrow-eyed look. It was a look of thought, of wheels turning behind eyes that didn't match Jim's. "But now...I remember each of your visits, I think. I...things change between them. I don't know how."

"We're always somewhere different," Jim agreed. "Somewhere _you_ remember. Not me."

Kirk looked around. "I've noticed that." He shook his head. "None of this makes what I'd like to call sense. Not that anything about the Nexus ever did. I don't even understand the purpose of a place that strips you of self, then uses all the pieces it finds to create a false paradise." He grinned, an expression that invited Jim to join in his amusement. "Paradise was never for me, false or not."

"I think that's something we have in common," Jim said, doing just that. "What's the point if nothing's happening? A good fight is better than a lot of things."

"If you can _change_ things, why wouldn't you kick and bite and claw?" Kirk asked. "Why wouldn't you fight if you can make a difference? Isn't that what being human is all about?"

Looking into that weathered version of his own face, listening to his words, something inside of Jim clicked into place. "Damn right it is," he said, nodding. "If we didn't want to struggle, we wouldn't have launched ourselves into space."

For the first time since he had encountered him, Jim won a full, wide smile from his counterpart. "Good to know you've got your head straight on your shoulders, kid."

"Back at you, Gramps," Jim told him, grinning back.

Kirk's smile faltered a little. "I wish I understood," he said. "I wish I knew what to do here. Things are changing but I still don't know. The other captain said that there was no time or place in the Nexus, that we could leave and go anywhere and to any time." One of his hands balled into a fist at his side. "But I can't for some reason. Or else I wouldn't be here." He looked down at his fist, slowly making himself unfurl his fingers, relaxing his hand. "There's only one place I'd want to go and that's where _he_ is. But I can't find him! Is that why I can't leave?"

Jim opened his mouth to answer but then he was in his bedroom, gasping for breath. He glanced around at the darkened contours of his room, trying to control his racing heart. He brought a hand to his chest and noticed it was shaking.  
He wasn't dreaming anymore.

He was beginning to think maybe he never had been.

Jim's head was so full of ideas, of possibilities that it felt like it could explode and he had to get them out. He glanced over at his innocent little dream journal, waiting for another entry, but he didn't reach for it. The ideas he had were too big for its pages, for mere recitation. Something was agitating in him, coalescing into a theory -- a crazy, brilliant theory.

The first thing Jim did when he jumped out of his bed and flopped down at his computer was send a text-only message to Spock, elder, of New Vulcan. It was one question that he thought got to the heart of the matter: _What does the Nexus mean to you?_

Second, he flipped his comm and called the only person who loved him enough to answer at 3AM in the morning and come running if he asked.

**

"What in the hell is the matter with you?" Bones growled as soon as Jim opened his apartment door and the doctor barreled into the living area. Before Jim had the door closed properly, Bones had his instruments out, taking copious readings of Jim's current state of health.

"Bones! Thanks for coming," he said. "I need to talk to you."

"What have you been doing to yourself?" Bones demanded, ignoring Jim's greeting. He was frowning hard, face all scrunched from his scowl. "Jesus, Jim, your heartbeat is elevated, your blood pressure is up and your oxygenation levels suggest that you've recently been deprived of sufficient oxygen to your brain. You're supposed to be resting, not doing whatever you were just doing!"

"I was sleeping!" Jim protested. "I swear, that was it. Sleeping."

Bones pinned with him a deeply suspicious look as he crossed his arms. "Then what made you call me over in the middle of the damn night if you didn’t have an immediate medical crisis?"

"Okay, first sit," he said, guiding his friend into a chair. "I needed someone to talk to, someone who'd listen to me. Bones, I think something...there aren't words for what I think might be happening, okay? But I think it's happening."

"Well how can you tell me if you can't find the words?" Bones drawled, still looking sleep-deprived and grumpy.

Jim took the chair across from Bones and leaned in, elbows on his knees. "These dreams I've been having? They've been about the older, the _other_ Jim Kirk. From the old Spock's timeline."

"Huh," Bones said.

"Right? At first I thought it was some kind of suppressed memory from the mind meld we had on Delta Vega and the stuff with Khan just shook them loose."

"Vulcan voodoo," Bones mumbled.

"Yeah, yeah," Jim continued. "But tonight I had the dream again, only I don't think it was."

"It wasn't the same dream?" Bones asked.

"It wasn't a dream at all," Jim clarified. He wet his lips, nerves jangling as he gave voice to his theory. "Bones, I don't think the other me is really dead. I think he's out there somewhere."

"Jim," Bones began and he had that tone, the one that said that Jim was stark raving mad. "Even if I understand this temporal whatsits correctly, the older version of Spock is old, even for a Vulcan. No way his Jim Kirk could still be alive. Humans aren't made to match 'em that way."

"But see, that's the thing," Jim told him. "The other Kirk, he's -- he's stuck in this place. He calls it the Nexus. There's no time there, it doesn't pass. It's like...a place out of time. He said he was there 78 years and it felt like minutes." Jim outlined everything the other Kirk had told him about the Nexus, which wasn't very much. 

By the time he was finished, Bones had his head in his hands, like he was suffering a massive headache. Jim had a feeling _he_ was the headache in question. He pulled his hands away. "Let me just see if I got this straight," he said. "You think that when you sleep, you're somehow talking to this other version of you that lives in some kind of...pocket universe...where time's made up and distance doesn't matter?"

"Well, when you put it like _that_..." Jim sighed. "How would you explain it?"

"You've got a good imagination," Bones said. "And therapy's not doing its job because you won't let it."

"Bones," Jim groaned. "I'm not losing my mind."

"I didn't say you were," his friend said. "But I think you're overlooking the obvious answers that have nothing with temporal paradoxes."

"Like?" Jim asked.

Bones sighed. "Like maybe the fact you're grieving for Pike, so you're dreaming yourself someone to look up to," he said. "And you're lonely because of a certain Vulcan we don't talk about and maybe you think if you can't work it out with him, you can work it out for the other one." He reached over and laid a comforting hand over one of Jim's. "Like maybe you're scared now that you've died and you're looking for a way to cheat it the next time it comes snapping at your heels."

Jim couldn't argue that Bones's reasons didn’t make more sense than his; he couldn't even argue that Bones wasn't right about his state of mind. And maybe before that night, he would've accepted Bones's explanations as the right ones for his dreams but that night, it had been different. The person he had met in that place wasn't just some figment of his imagination, he was sure of it. "I understand what you're saying," Jim said, cursing the desperation he could hear in his own voice. "But I think it's more than that. I honestly do."

"If it is," Bones asked gently, giving Jim's hand a squeeze. "How? Why? Why now?"

That was also something Jim felt in his gut. "We both died, Bones, but we both got pulled back from it somehow. Me with Khan's blood and him with his Nexus thing. If you believe in souls or selves or whatever, that seems like the kind of thing that might create a connection. We both crossed a cosmic line and came back to tell about it."

"You don't have any proof, Jim," Bones said.

"I know," he admitted. "But I'm working on it. And once I do, I'll move on to the next step."

"I'm scared to ask," Bones said.

"If he's there, I've got to figure out a way to get him out."

**


	3. Chapter 3

Bones finally left, grumbling about how he needed at least a few hours of sleep before the start of his next shift and Jim had let him, content to keep his own company for a while. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but Jim was disappointed that Bones was ready to disbelieve him so quickly. He wasn't the kind of person to jump to irrational conclusions; he was smart, damn it, and even when he relied on his gut, there was always a basis in reality to his choices. The fact that reality had recently expanded to include alternate realities and non-theoretical time-travel wasn't a reason to dismiss him.

He had just gotten out of the shower and was focused on getting as much caffeine into his system as possible when Jim heard his computer sound, alerting that someone was requesting a connection. Jim couldn't decide if he was or was not surprised to see that it was from New Vulcan. He accepted and took a seat, still scrubbing at his damp hair with his towel. When he saw the unreadable lines of the older Spock's face appear on the screen, he noticed the darkness behind him.

"Isn't it like the middle of the night on Vulcan?" Jim asked in lieu of a polite greeting.

"It is," Spock agreed. "However, I was awake and your message was startling enough that I did not see the logic in waiting to contact you."

"So," Jim drawled. "What do you know about the Nexus?"

"What do _you_ know about it?" Spock replied.

"No fair," Jim said. "I asked first."

"Jim," Spock began, with a certain note of impatience in his voice, one that Jim was only used to hearing from _his_ Spock. "Why did you send me a rather arcane message about something called the Nexus?"

"Because that's what really happened to your Jim, isn't it?" Jim asked. "He didn't die in space, he got sucked into the Nexus."

"And he was lost to me all the same," Spock said. "How did you come to learn of the Nexus?"

"I dreamed about it," Jim said. "I dreamed that I was with the other Kirk on Veridian III and he told me that he died there. He told me about the Nexus and some guy named Picard." Jim paused, wanting to blurt out his theory but cautious after Bones's reaction to it. "What do you think that means?"

"It means I owe you a bigger apology than I thought," the old Spock said. "My control during our meld was much more tenuous than I feared."

Jim bit back a growl of frustration that even Spock didn't see what it could mean. "Do you really think all of this is because of a meld we shared over a year ago? That all of this was just sitting there in the back of my head to show up now?"

"There cannot be another explanation," Spock told him. 

"Yes, there can, Spock," Jim told him. "Can you not guess what I mean?"

Spock very visibly sighed. "Jim..."

"The Nexus doesn't follow the rules of space and time, that's what the other me said," Jim continued. "It's another universe so it wouldn't be affected by the changes Nero had on the timeline because it exists outside of it."

"Please, stop," Spock said. Jim did, but it was difficult to do. "You are suggesting that the other James Kirk, the one from my timeline, is somehow still alive within the confines of the Nexus?"

"Yes!" Jim said.

"And you believe that you are somehow speaking to him in your dreams?" Spock surmised.

"That was my thought, yeah," Jim said. "Is it so hard to believe?"

"Yes, it is," Spock said softly. "That Jim Kirk is dead. I saw his grave with my own eyes on Veridian III."

"But that was a century into the future ago," Jim argued. "You're in the past now."

"And you are here, in lieu of that other Jim, just as my other self is here," Spock explained. "That is the way of time-travel, it seems."

"But if there's no time in the Nexus, that means Jim Kirk is in the Nexus _at all times_ ," he said. "And he's reaching out to me somehow, or I'm reaching out to him. I'm not sure which but it's happening."

There was pain on the old Vulcan's face, even as he tried to hide it. Jim could see it in his dark eyes, barely veiled by heavy lids. "I know you only mean well, Jim," he said slowly, as if each word was a wound. "But your belief is illogic. As much as I would do anything to have my Jim return to me, it cannot happen. I lost him almost a century ago when he went into the Nexus -- that he did not physically die until 78 years later did nothing to change that fact. I can only again offer you my apologies for the memories I accidentally imparted to you that are causing you to dream of these distressful things. If they do not subside, you may wish to come to the colony where a trained healer could mend the damage I caused."

Jim felt another wave of disappointment come over him, like a knife twisted in his side. "I don't think there's any damage, Spock. I think your Jim is lost and alone and I'm the only one who can find him. Can't you at least entertain the possibility?"

Spock was silent for a moment, eyes cast down at his steepled hands. "Hope is a curious and illogical Human emotion, one that I have entertained far too much over my years. I fear that I have reached an age where it is not only illogical but dangerous." He looked up and the sadness Jim had seen was anguish. "I cannot do so, Jim, I'm sorry."

"Yeah," he whispered. "I understand."

"I hope you continue to improve," Spock said. "Farewell."

Jim didn't bother to reply as he cut the connection a little more emphatically that actually necessary. He didn't care if no one believed him; Jim knew, somewhere deep inside of himself, that this wasn't a figment of his imagination or even a figment of Spock's memories. The man he'd spoken to the night before had had too much vitality, energy, personality to be a shade of someone else's psyche. There was another Captain James T. Kirk out there and he needed Jim's help to make it out of the cosmic quagmire that had held him in limbo for so long. That Kirk didn't want stagnation or paradise; he wanted action and change and life. He wanted his Spock and, unlike in Jim's situation, his Spock wanted him in return. Even if the old Vulcan was being stubborn and narrow-minded (much like another Spock Jim could name), Jim wanted to give him his Kirk back, if he could.  
Jim headed to his kitchen for that coffee, grabbing his padd along the way. If he was on his own, he had things to do if he was going to figure it all out.

**

The third time Jim expressed his theory about the other Kirk, it didn't go any better than it had the first two.

Dr. Noel blinked at him with her big brown eyes, almost as if she'd been stunned into silence. Finally, she said, "And you do see why both Dr. McCoy and your Vulcan friend found your hypothesis...well, illogical?"

Since she was cleared as his primary psychologist to know the particulars of his missions -- including those involving a time-traveling alternate version of his first officer -- Jim hadn't broken any rules by telling her his conclusions about his dreams. However, he was worried he might've broken her brain and busted his chances for ever coming off of his indefinite medical leave by doing so.

"I get that mine isn't the easiest answer," he admitted. "But that doesn't make it wrong."

"But you admit that it's far-fetched," she said.

"So is a time-traveling Romulan miner with a grudge against the entire planet of Vulcan or a unthawed superman from the 20th century hell-bent to destroy Starfleet," he quipped. "Still, they happened."

"Your point is taken," Dr. Noel said. "Still...Jim, this theory sounds more like an escape mechanism than anything else. You have to be willing to admit you could be wrong."

"So you think I'm wrong too?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

"I think Dr. McCoy's analysis was very astute," she said. "I've drawn similar conclusions myself."

"So you don't just think I'm wrong, you think I'm crazy," Jim snapped.

Dr. Noel sighed. "I think you've lived through a very traumatic experience, after a lifetime of fairly traumatic experiences," she said. "I think you'd prefer to have a problem outside of yourself to solve instead of facing the one of your own emotional responses. And I think that's normal, not crazy." She smiled, just a little. "Although the problem you've invented is a bit more creative than the usual ones I see."

"Doc, no offense, but I didn't invent this," he said. "I didn't invent the Nexus -- it _exists_. I didn't invent the fact that Kirk was trapped there -- he _was_. And the only way I knew these things is because he told me. I don't buy Spock's mindmeld theory at all. This isn't me jumping at shadows."

"But there's no way to prove it," Dr. Noel said.

"Doesn't matter," Jim told her. "I know it, in my gut."

"Instinctively?" she said. "Do you make a lot of your decisions based on 'your gut'?"

"Things happen fast in space, Dr. Noel," Jim said. "Sometimes it's the only thing you can rely on."

"It's understandable that you've developed the habit," she said. "However, you cannot go on instinct alone."

"I agree, that's why I went to the Academy," he shot back. At the baleful look that earned him, Jim let out an exasperated breath. "Sorry," he said. "But I'm just a little tired of being called crazy."

"That's not ---"

"No, seriously," he said. "That's what you're really saying. Illogical, irrational, imaginary. It boils down to crazy and I'm not." Jim paused, letting his eyes wander over the sterile serenity of Dr. Noel's office, silver and glass that gleamed in the sunlight. "And why is it crazy? With all of our science, we still haven't been able to prove or disprove of a soul. Civilizations far more advanced than us still believe in one, believe that souls can connect, transcend everything of the physical." He knew his tone was challenging but he didn't care. "Would you be dismissing me out of hand if I wasn't some poor farm hick from Iowa? Some lowly human who should know better than to believe in fairy tales?"

He didn't look away from Dr. Noel's assessing gaze and finally something in her face softened. "There is some truth to what you're saying," she admitted and Jim somehow managed not to crow in triumph. "I can't imagine telling a Vulcan not to believe in his katra, for example."

"Which is...?"

She cleared her throat. "Something very close to what we call a soul would be the best way to explain it. It's the...spiritual, that which makes a Vulcan all that he is -- his knowledge, his memories, his thoughts. They used to have the katras of their most honored citizens preserved in a sanctuary on Vulcan. It, of course, was lost with everything else."

"Yeah," Jim said, thinking of the heat and red sky from his dream.

"They even have old stories about a process that can reunite a katra with a body to defeat death," Dr. Noel said. "It's called the fal tor pan. There hasn't been a documented try of it in ages, of course, it's more fairy story than fact, even for many Vulcans. But they still believe in it. Their mental gifts, in fact, have created a rigorous set of beliefs regarding the connection and alignment of katras, many of which are part of their everyday existence."

"So then why is my story so hard to believe?" demanded Jim. "We have living proof of alternate timelines. We have proof of time-travel. And the smartest aliens we know that are willing to consort with humans still believe in all that jazz. But me? I'm crazy."

"Jim, no one thinks you're crazy," Dr. Noel said. "It's just...I think we're all worried about _you_. And we're worried that this fixation on a hypothetical alternate Kirk might just be a way for you to avoid dealing with what happened to you."

"I'm dealing with it fine," he said. "It's the rest of you who can't handle it." Even though their session was far from over, Jim did something he hadn't done before: he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. "Maybe you should deal with _that_ , Doctor, before our next visit."

Dr. Noel made no move to stop him. 

 

**

In what Bones would've called true Jim Kirk fashion, Jim bedded down early that night, focusing all his thoughts on his counterpart. His dreams about the other Jim Kirk had been haphazard and he wasn't even sure what the trigger was, but he hoped that by focusing on him that Jim could ensure a connection that evening. He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, his mind solely focused on the puzzle at hand: the Nexus, the other Kirk, the differences between the two of them. Somewhere along the way, he fell asleep.

Jim woke up in what looked in an open green field, spotted every so often with bits of foliage, trees and shrubs and large flowering plants. Off in the distance there was what looked like a quaint house with a barn near it, but it wasn't Iowa, at least not any place Jim knew.

He heard a snort and turned to see his older self, still stately in his crimson uniform with its shiny gold emblem. "Apparently the Nexus has a sense of humor," he said. "Or the universe does." He shook his head. "I rail against false paradises and artificial happiness and this is what I get." He picked up a branch, fallen from the tree that towered over them.

"Where are we?" Jim asked.

"Omicron Ceti III," Kirk said. "I _hated_ this place."

Jim looked out over the peaceful green fields that stretch out before them. "Any particular reason?" he asked dryly.

 

Kirk gestured with the stick he held. "Because this is where..." His words trailed off and he dropped the stick before he turned sharply to face Jim. His hazel eyes were wide with revelation.

"What?" Jim demanded.

"Spock," Kirk said and it made a shiver go down Jim's spine, to hear that name in the other Kirk's voice. "That's who I've been looking for but can't find. I need _Spock_."

"Yeah," Jim said, a grin threatening him. "Took you long enough to figure it out."

Kirk's eyes narrowed a little but there was still humor in his expression. "So you've just been waiting for me to catch up?"

"Something like that."

Kirk raised a hand to his forehead. "This place strips it all away," he explained seriously. "I could feel it always but I never knew it was. And even once I knew something was missing, that I was looking for someone, it still tried to keep me from it." He met Jim's eyes. "But every time you've come, everything has gotten a little clearer. I don't know why, but thank you." 

"Glad to help," Jim said, meaning it. 

Kirk closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He looked like he was meditating or something. After a moment, he opened his eyes. "I can't feel him anymore," he said. "I can only feel where he's missing. What's happened to him?"

"Nothing!" Jim assured him. "Just...I don't think your bond works through the Nexus. But he's fine."

Kirk turned back to Jim. "Are you saying you know of _my_ Spock? Not that young one who I assume you know in your own timeline."

"Yeah, I do," Jim said. "In fact, I think that's why you can't find your way out of here to him. Because your Spock isn't where he's supposed to be, not from your perspective. He's in _my_ time."

"Are you saying that Spock has literally taken to living in the past?" Kirk asked.

"An alternate past, yeah," he said. "He's kind of...stuck." At Kirk's confusion, Jim waved a hand. "It's a long story about a crazy Romulan who came back and irrevocably changed the timeline before your Spock could stop him and now everything is different and, by the way, I became captain of the Enterprise five years ahead of you, but there's nothing for your Spock to go back to or any way so he's chilling back in the 2250s."

Kirk looked surprised for a minute but then it smoothed away. "If I hadn't been the captain of the Enterprise for a good thirty years, I might doubt what you're telling me," he said. "But I've seen enough to know that anything is possible."

"Actually, I think that's why I found you," Jim continued. "Because this is the past and because of the way the Nexus works. I don't know exactly how but I think since we both died and came back...our minds keep meeting up. Me, back on Earth and you, here in the Nexus."

Slowly, Kirk nodded. "It's as good a reason as any," he said. Some hint of vulnerability came over those strong features. "Spock is...fine?"

Something fluttered in Jim's stomach. "Yeah, he's fine. In perfect health for 150-year-old Vulcan."

"150 years?" Kirk shook his head. "I've been gone so long."

"And he still misses you," Jim said. "I talked to him yesterday, in fact."

Kirk's eyes closed for a second, a hand to his chest. Then he looked at Jim. "Will you tell him something for me? Will you tell him...?"

"Whoa," Jim said, cutting off his counterpart's emotion-laden voice. "I'm not going to tell him anything because I'm going to get you out of here."

"Are you now?" Kirk said. "Do you have a plan for how to do this, _Captain_ Kirk?"

"Not really," Jim told him. He reached over and clasped a hand on his counterpart's arm, touching him for the first time since his dreams had brought him into the Nexus. Something crackled between them, like an electrical discharge. Jim felt breathless and his heart raced. Still, he managed to keep talking. "I think maybe you can follow me out somehow," he said. "If you come to me, I can get you to your Spock. Right?"

"Can I?"

"You're the one who's the expert on this place," Jim said, ignoring the sudden burning in his chest. "You'll have to figure it out how if you want ----"

"Jim! Damn it, Jim, don't you dare die on me again!"

The sound of Bones's voice was almost as disorienting as his short breath, as the sudden re-emergence into his reality and away from the other Kirk's. Jim's chest was heaving as he gasped for breath, a sheen of sweat on his face that had no place in the carefully controlled climate of his apartment. He used shaky hands to brush back his damp bangs as he focused on the most incongruous thing, which was his best friend nearly sitting on him in the bed, muttering as he ran his medical instruments over Jim.

"Bones?" Jim asked between pants. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Bones's shoulders relaxed a little with Jim's words but he didn't move or stop frowning at his tricorder. "Trying to stop your heart and lungs from stopping, apparently," he said. "Your vitals are all over the place! You nearly coded!"

"How did you know?" Jim asked.

"Well, for one thing, you weren't answering your comm, so I was on my way over to check on you because I'm your doctor as well as your friend. Then I was almost here and your emergency medical alarm alerted me that your heart was trying to beat its way out of your chest and a crash was imminent. So I used my medical override and let myself in."

"You're spying on my vitals?" Jim asked. "You paranoid bastard."

"It's a good thing I am," Bones said, paying no attention to the insult. "You were in some kind of, I don't know, trance. If I hadn't woken you up when I did that tachycardia might've killed you -- if the lack of oxygen didn't first."

"Shit," Jim said. "And I was so _close_."

"Are you trying to die again?" Bones barked, fury sweeping over his features.

"What? No!" Jim pushed at his friend, needing some space. Bones obliged, sliding farther down the bed's edge so that Jim didn't feel so crowded. "That's not what I meant. I meant, I was close to bringing the other Kirk out of the Nexus. At least I think I was."

"So you were dreaming about the other Kirk when all of this happened?" Bones asked.

"I was in contact with him in my dreams, yes," Jim clarified. "I had almost convinced him to come back with me and then...I touched him," he continued. "That's when I felt my heart speed up and then you were yelling at me."

"You showed signs of some distress the other day and you said you'd been dreaming," Bones remembered. "Also about the other Kirk?"

Jim nodded.

"Then it has to stop," Bones announced, rising to his feet. He swung around and zeroed in on his medical kit. 

"No way!" Jim said, following after him. "Bones, I can't give up on him!"

"This...whatever you're doing is hurting you," his friend argued. 

"All I have to do is get him out," Jim said. "Then I won't have any reason to connect to that place anymore. But I can't just stop. I couldn't do it to him or Spock. Not when he's so close."

Bones's face was all downward lines radiating his displeasure. "I don't know what's happening but it's killing you," he said. "And you're still not going to give this up, even if I tell you to?"

"No," Jim said. "I'm sorry, Bones, but I can't. I have to see this through."

Bones sighed. "No more until I can check you out -- thoroughly," he said. "You, at Medical, tomorrow morning, all right?"

"All right," Jim agreed. "But I can't exactly control my dreams, you know."

Bones rummaged around in his kit and came up with a hypo. "This is a neural inhibitor," he explained. "If your mind is really wandering out across the galaxy when you sleep, this should help. We give it to telepaths and empaths who are having control issues or who are projecting by accident. It should work the same on you."

"So you believe me now?" Jim asked.

"I believe something's happening," he admitted. "And even your worst nightmares never tried to kill you." He stepped up and pressed the hypo to Jim's throat. Jim winced. "Okay?"

"Okay," Jim said, accepting it was for what it was -- the closest Bones would come to admitting that Jim was right, at least without irrefutable proof. Jim planned to give it to him in the form of one 60-something James T. Kirk.

"You should get some sleep, kid," Bones said. "Some _real_ sleep."

Jim agreed and crawled back into bed, eyes already drooping before he heard Bones leave. For the rest of the night, his sleep was peaceful and dreamless.

**

Meanwhile, in a small quiet abode set just far enough away from bustling centers of activity to ensure a measure of respect and solitude, the elder Spock sat before a small flame, deep into meditation. He was serene, easily attaining the depth of tranquility that he had only learned to find through decades of study and practice.

Then there was a _flare_ in his mind, a spark of presence that he hadn't felt in almost a century. It wrenched him out of meditation, tearing him away from his peace, even as it died as quickly as it had come upon him. 

Spock's eyes snapped opened, surprise in their depths, though no one was there to see it. He raised a hand to his chest, to the seat of his body where he'd often felt the physical responses to that spark. It had a name, a precious one. _Jim_.

Spock knew it had been real; it had felt just like it had some twenty years ago, which he later learned had corresponded with Jim's appearance on Veridian III. And just like then, the life in their bond had faded away within a few minutes, leaving Spock only with the painful echoes of what was. 

Still -- for a moment -- he had felt Jim, which should not have been possible. Jim was dead and in timeline separate from his, at best, and forever erased, at worst. But all the same he _had_. Strong, bright, unmistakable, like the sun rising above the Forge at dawn. Despite himself, what followed his realization was the dawning of hope. He could no longer dismiss the young Jim's words and theories out of hand. Something was happening, something that had to do not only with this universe's young Kirk but also with the one Spock had called bondmate. 

Spock doused his meditation flame and slowly rose to his feet, feeling every year of his age in his bones. Whenever he thought about the breaks and collections of years within his lifespan, he often felt a weariness come over him, rooted in both gratitude and sorrow. The gratitude came from the memory of every precious moment he had shared with Jim, the forces of destiny that had brought them together again and again until they had acknowledged what they were to each other; the sorrow came from the fact that he had lived most of his life without him, left only with that memory.

He slowly moved through his small home, packing. Then Spock consulted his computer for the schedules of ships departing the colony that day, ones headed in the direction he planned to go. When he saw that there was a diplomatic group bound for a meeting with Starfleet at their San Francisco headquarters, he offer a silent thank-you to the universe. Once the sun had risen enough that an unannounced visit would not be considered rude, Spock headed off to his destination.

Sarek's home was not far from Spock's, although it was larger and more grand, as befitted a man of his stature. Spock had been there several times; while he preferred to be left alone with his work, Spock was considered an elder among his people and was often called to meetings to discuss matters of import. He knew the path well between their houses. Sarek himself answered the door when Spock touched the chime.

"Elder," Sarek said, as he always addressed Spock, even knowing his true identity. It was a fact that often caused Spock amusement. "Your presence honors me."

"Thank you, Ambassador," he said as he stepped inside. 

"What may I offer you?"

"Your assistance on a matter of berth with the diplomatic group that travels to Earth later today," he said. "I have business there. Second, I would speak to your son if he is available."

Sarek nodded. "He is meditating in the central garden but I believe your interruption would not be of consequence," he said. "And on the matter of transport, I will see what arrangements I can make."

Spock knew his own way to the central garden and there he found his younger self as promised. He immediately understood why Sarek believed that an interruption was acceptable -- it was clear that the young Spock had not fallen into deep meditation yet. His body was too studied in its stillness, a rigorous control that spoke of thorough consciousness. Spock could also tell from the tension and stiffness of the young one's frame, as well as the faintest of shadows under his closed eyes, that this was not the first time that Spock had failed to reach a sufficient level of meditation. If betting were not illogical, Spock would've wagered that his counterpart's trouble was weeks in the making -- ever since his captain had died before his eyes.

"Spock," he said, to catch the younger one's attention.

Dark eyes flew open, then up to meet his. "Mr. Spock," he said. "Do you have need of me?"

"I am leaving the planet today," he said. "I have business on Earth. I would ask that you accompany me."

The younger rose gracefully to his feet. "For what purpose?" he asked. "I have only recently returned here from Earth and any business of yours does not require my presence."

"My business is on the matter of James T. Kirk," he revealed. " _Your_ captain."

Spock was silently pleased to see the spasm of emotion cross the other's face at Jim's mention. "Whatever business you have with my captain still does not become mine."

The elder let his eyebrow rise in response. "I know that you do not consider your captain the way I once did mine, who was my dearest friend," he said. "But I would think that your captain's well-being would still be of importance to you."

 _Ah, there,_ thought Spock, watching as the younger's spine stiffen and his fists clench. "The captain's well-being was assured when I left Earth, even to Dr. McCoy's satisfaction."

"Circumstances have changed," Spock told him. "Have you had no contact with him?"

"He has sent me one short missive since I arrived," he admitted. "He made no mention of a complication."

"I have spoken with him twice in the last week," Spock said. "There is a grave matter weighing on him, one that might be affecting his health. I am...worried for him."

"Jim is ill?" Spock asked, unable to stop the tremor in his voice at the question, a fact Spock noted with satisfaction.

"It appears that he may suffer an imbalance of the mind," Spock said. He saw no need to tell his younger self of his illogical hopes that Jim's recent experiences were more than that. Until he was sure, he could only rely on the facts. "I believe it might stem from an improper mind-meld that he and I shared when we first met, an affliction that has been exacerbated by recent events."

Spock's eyes widened. "Jim does not have the proper controls to protect himself," he snapped. "He could not, as he is not a telepath."

"And for that reason, I go to Earth," the elder said. "Even if friendship does not guide your actions as it does mine, I thought perhaps that your duty might still call for you to accompany me."

"Jim _is_ my friend, elder," Spock told him, eyes dark with anger. "Please desist suggesting otherwise."

"I ask pardon, then," the elder said mildly. "The distance you have placed between you during his recovery led me to a false conclusion."

Spock swallowed, his expression painfully human. "There were reasons that I needed to come to the colony. But it is not because I have not formed a kinship with my captain."

"As you say," the elder murmured. "Do you come?"

"I come," Spock said. "Have you made the arrangements?"

"Our father makes them," the elder said. 

Spock nodded. "I will prepare, if you will excuse me."

"I will rest here while I wait," he told his young counterpart. The young Spock offered a quick bow of his head and disappeared back in the house.

Spock settled on a sun-warmed stone bench, enjoying the transfer of heat into his bones. He thought about all that the young version of him had revealed of his feelings for his captain during their short exchange and Spock felt a second thread of illogical hope stir within him. To one who knew him as well as Spock must know himself, it was clear to the older Vulcan than the young one felt something painful and expansive for his own Jim Kirk -- which was how Spock had first summarized his own feelings for his bondmate when he had first realized that they trespassed past mere friendship. It seemed as if the young version of his bondmate might not be alone in his suffering of love pains. 

_Jim_ , Spock thought, into the universe -- and perhaps into another where hope said his Jim might wait. _Maybe they will find each other as we did and enjoy even more years of happiness. And maybe...maybe. somehow...we will, too._

 

**


	4. Chapter 4

Bones frowned at the readings on the screen. "Perfectly healthy," he announced, consternation in his voice.

Jim snorted, reaching for his T-shirt. "Could you sound more unhappy about that?"

Bones continued to frown at the readings from the various tests he had run on Jim that morning. Despite what had happened the night before when he'd dreamed -- no, connected -- to the other Kirk, Bones couldn't find any physical reason for the episode. It was, Jim noted in amusement, pissing his doctor friend off. 

"Shouldn't you be glad that I'm a-okay?" Jim demanded, voice muffled as he pulled the shirt over his head.

"I'm ecstatic you didn't die last night," Bones assured him, arms still crossed over his chest. "But there should be a reason for what happened, one that I should find some clue of on these tests. And once I know why, I can make sure you don't die the next time you go to sleep."

"We know the reason," Jim argued. "It's just not physical."

"I'm not a fan of attributing real health concerns to voodoo," Bones said. "Especially not when it's your health we're talking about."

"Bones, you just fed me a serum made from the blood of a genetically engineered throwback," Jim reminded him. "It's not like we haven't been off the beaten path, medically speaking, for a while now."

"If you had even an ounce of telepathic ability, I'd find this easier to swallow," his friend told him. "But you're psi-null and you've never shown any kind of predisposition to this before, let alone _astral projecting yourself into another universe_."

Only Bones, Jim thought fondly, would use an old 20th century term like "astral projecting." "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio," Jim quipped, which made Bones roll his eyes. "I'm just saying, we've spent the last year rushing headlong into the unexplained."

Bones just grumbled under his breath, his way of conceding the point. Jim grinned and slid off the examination table, stretching his arms above his head. "Well now that I've been poked and prodded for no reason, I have a future alternate version of myself to save from cosmic purgatory, so if you'll excuse me..."

"Hold it, Jim," Bones ordered, grabbing a hold of his arm. There was concern shining in his friend's eyes. "I think you should keep taking the inhibitor."

"I'm fine," he argued, tugging his arm out of Bones's grip. "You just said so."

"But you weren't last night," he said. "And if you're right and this happens when you sleep...you could die and no one would be the wiser. It's too great a risk."

Jim sighed. "I understand what you're saying but I can't just stop. I need to help him get home."

"Even at the cost of your own life?" Bones demanded. "Even if we have to trade one Jim Kirk for another?"

"I don't think we will," Jim said. "But yeah even if it's risky. I can't leave him there, stuck there for eternity. I couldn't do that to him or to his Spock. God, Bones, Spock's bondmate has been dead for a century and I can bring him back to him. And you want me to _stop_?"

Bones's eyes narrowed. "I can't talk you out of this."

"You know the answer to that," Jim said.

Bones stared at Jim for another minute before he finally ground out, "Fine, but you're going to take precautions. And I'll be crashed out on your couch until it's over or you give up on this fool mission."

"Bones," Jim said, smiling. "I always knew you loved me."

"Brat," Bones said, although his expression softened. "My shift ends at 1800 hours. We'll have dinner and get ready for your spirit walk."

"We really need to work on your cultural sensitivity," Jim said as he grabbed his jacket and started for the door. "See you tonight!"

Unfortunately, all of Jim's resolve didn't stop that night from being a resounding failure. First, sleep eluded him, no matter how hard he tried and Bones, bunking on the couch, refused to give him a sleep aid.

"Hell no," Bones said, shaking his head. "If you stop breathing again, I don't want anything in you that might stop me from waking you up."

When Jim finally drifted off, his dreams were uneasy but shapeless, dark shadows of dread behind his eyelids. There was absolutely no sign of the other him or the places of the Nexus. It made for a very cranky Jim the next morning.

"You should look happier that you didn't kill yourself last night," Bones said from behind his coffee cup. Jim just glared until Bones shared, passing him a full cup.

"I don't go there every night," he admitted. "But I was hoping..."

"There might've been enough traces of the neural inhibitor in your system that it couldn't happen," Bones said. He gave Jim a quick slap on the back. "There's always tonight, Jimmy."

Even more than the day before, Jim spent his day in anticipation for the coming night, determined that it would be _the_ night, the one where he got the old guy into this reality and proved to everyone that he wasn't crazy. He once again spent the evening thumbing through his little journal of the earliest dreams, trying to keep his mind focused on his goal even as he ignored Bones's theatrical groaning about the inhospitable nature of his sofa from the other side of his bedroom door.

Finally, _finally_ , Jim felt sleep creeping over him and redoubled his efforts to keep his mind firmly on the other Jim Kirk, on the Nexus, on wanting to _reach out_. Then there was darkness and flashes and then Jim opened his eyes and he was standing on the bridge of a starship.

The bridge was familiar but he couldn't identify _why_ ; it was, he realized, how he'd felt when he'd first met his older self. 

"You may have made captain five years before me, but I still have 30 years of experience on you." The other Kirk's voice drew Jim's attention away from one of the panels he'd been studying, drawing his eyes to where the captain sat, ensconced in the command chair in the middle of the bridge. He looked like he belonged there, Jim admitted to himself, taking in the easy way the older man sat in the chair. Jim doubted he had managed to look that commanding yet but he hoped one day he would.

"Another one of your ships?" Jim asked. 

The other Kirk gave him a small smile. "My only ship," he said. "This was, or is, or will be, I suppose, what the Enterprise looked like after her first major refit under my command. Between our first and second five-year missions."

Jim let out a low whistle at the idea of not one, but two, deep space missions. "I figured you'd have made Admiral after one of them."

The smile quirked. "I did," he said. "I spent a few years as Chief of Ops at HQ, even. But it wasn't where I wanted to be."

Jim knew that he wasn't this other Kirk and that he didn't have to live up to him but, _damn_ , he couldn't help but think. The other Captain Kirk was definitely as impressive as the older Spock had made him out to be.

"So any idea why we're here this time?" Jim asked, running a hand over this console and that as he walked along the bridge, inspecting it. His counterpart's eyes followed him, swiveling the chair as needed to keep him in his sight.

"The last time you were here, we were talking about maybe getting me out of here," he said. "And...Spock."

"Yup," Jim nodded. He stopped at a console near a turbolift and leaned back against it, eyeing his older companion. "And that has something to do with this?"

The older Kirk rose from the captain's chair and leaned against the railing that separated the lower level of the bridge from the upper where Jim stood. "You said you know both my Spock and the younger one?"

"Yeah," Jim said. "The younger one is my First Officer."

Kirk's eyebrow rose. "Funny how that keeps happening."

"So it seems."

"I presume you haven't been working together very long? No, I'd guess not," he went on, not waiting for answer. "Is he already so indispensable that you can't imagine life without him? I certainly felt that way about my Spock within the first six months or so. He made being captain for the first time much less frightening than it ought to have been."

Jim remembered the rush of dizzying relief when Spock had joined him on the Enterprise to accept his offer to be his First Officer and every time after that he had thanked his stars that he had the Vulcan at his elbow, helping him every step of the way. "I have some idea of what you mean," Jim finally said.

The other Kirk nodded, like he expected no less. "When he left me, I thought I'd never recover, although I hadn't been able to admit it at the time."

Jim's eyebrow rose this time, in surprise. "He left you?"

"For three years," Kirk said. "I took the promotion, took the position at Starfleet Operations. I tried moving on with him gone, presumably for forever, but I was miserable. Everyone knew it even if they didn't understand that Spock was the cause. Perhaps Bones did, maybe, but he never said anything."

"That's Bones for you," Jim said.

"Most delicate straight-shooter in the galaxy," Kirk agreed. His eyes wandered away from Jim's face to linger on the turbolift to his right. "I was standing...right here..." Kirk continued, gaze dreamy. "When I saw him for the first time in three years. He just...showed up on the bridge, all the way from Vulcan, like I had conjured him up with my thoughts. I suppose, in a way, I had." Kirk's hands tightened on the rail he leaned against. "I don't think I had ever been so happy before that moment, just seeing him again. Those three years had seemed interminable." Kirk's eyes darted back to Jim. "And if what you're telling me is true, then I've been gone over eighty years by his reckoning."

Jim thought it was longer but he hadn't exactly kept all the math straight in his head. "Pretty close to a century," he admitted.

"In those three years, I got married, I changed jobs, I..." Kirk trailed off. "I might not have actually moved on but I damn sure tried. He's had decades to do the same and he's always been more practical than I have, especially about this. He has to be. I wonder..."

"What?" Jim prompted.

"When I was replaced," Kirk said. "If he's even in a position to want me back."

"I don't think he ever replaced you," Jim said honestly. "Ever."

"He would've had to," Kirk told him. "There's a Vulcan...anyway, he would have to take another bondmate, especially given his relative youth when I disappeared."

"Maybe he did," Jim said. "I don't know. He's never mentioned them if he did. He said when he left his time that there was no one of significance that he left behind. And he definitely wasn't open to it in my time."

Kirk snapped out of his reverie, shooting a shrewd gaze at his younger self. "Just how close are you and my Spock?" he asked.

Jim couldn't believe he was _blushing_ at the question. "We're friends!" he said, but the assessing look didn't waver. Jim was the one who looked away as he admitted, "I might've once, maybe, offered to, um, you know. Help him out. Since I was a Jim Kirk, if not _the_ Jim Kirk." When Jim chanced a look at his older self, he felt himself squirm a little under the steely gaze still fastened on him. "Look, we melded once, okay? Totally in the line of duty, but I could feel how much he loved you. It was overwhelming and he couldn't hide it from me. So, I thought...anyway, he turned me down."

Kirk's face softened and his eyes turned warm, the piercing gaze of a hardened warrior melting away under a kind of amused affection. "Calm down, Jim," he said. "You thought I'd be angry?"

"Well, I did just admit to making a pass at your bondmate," Jim said with a nervous laugh.

"These conversations we've had have proved that we aren't the same person," Kirk said. "But it's also shown that in some ways, we're incredibly similar. Do you think I wouldn't understand? You're obviously fond of my Spock and you wanted to ease his suffering. I wouldn't have begrudged either of you if Spock had agreed. I have been gone a very long time."

"Then why are we even having this conversation?" Jim asked, straightening up from his studied slouch. "You know Spock loves you better than anything -- just like you love him. And it's not like there's anything here worth hanging out for." He nodded toward the turbolift. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

Kirk straightened up himself, tugging at the hem of his red jacket. "Have you shored up that plan yet?" he asked, even as he strode across the bridge to stand beside his younger counterpart.

"When I touched you last time, something happened," Jim said. "I don't know for sure but I think if that was the key. And..." He nodded toward the turbolift again. "This is your show, Admiral," he said. "I think you need to believe."

"They demoted me, just so you know," Kirk said. He looked toward the turbolift and took a deep breath. "Just believe, you say? Like Tinkerbell and Peter Pan."

"I've always liked Peter Pan," Jim said.

"Me, too," Kirk said. He stared at the turbolift until the doors opened but instead of a lift, there was a bright light. He turned to his younger counterpart and motioned toward the light. "Shall we?"

"Yeah," Jim said, grabbing his counterpart by the elbow. He immediately felt his breath stutter and his heart pound wildly in his chest. "Let's do it."

Both Kirks stepped into the light with an audible gasp.

** 

The Federation vessel that carried the group of Vulcan scientists to Earth and that also carried Spock and his younger self was swift, but it would still take it approximately two days to reach the planet, two days the elder planned to use to master the stirrings of hope that remained lodged in his chest. As he had told the young Jim, hope was dangerous. 

Spock meditated for hours once they were en route, shielding himself as much as he could from the tattered remains of what had once been his bond with Jim -- a bond they had created long before they had acknowledged what they had truly been to each other, back when only words of friendship were shared between them. It had been something almost mystical, the way they had come together, the kind of connection often praised in the oldest of Vulcan literature, half-considered illogical fairy tale by the time Sarek and Amanda's son had been born. But he, Spock of both Vulcan and Earth, had found it with James Kirk, entirely of Earth, and the three decades of their acquaintance remained the only years in which Spock had ever felt truly alive. He would not survive if his hope took root, only to be killed by an unkind reality.

It was not surprising that neither he nor his younger counterpart were in any frame of mind to interact more than necessary with the ship's crew or with the Vulcan contingent with which they traveled. Through necessity, they had only each other for company and took their meals together in Spock's guest quarters. The elder waited patiently through both the first and second shared meal before the young one's patience and reticence ran out. 

"When did you have the opportunity to mind-meld with Captain Kirk?" the younger one finally asked, as if the question could no longer be contained.

"It was on Delta Vega," Spock answered. "I thought it the most expedient way to explain to him my origins."

"And yet you have damaged him in some way," the young one said, most disapprovingly. "You should've known it was inadvisable given your -- our -- emotional state."

"Yes," the older one conceded. "I should have." Even if it was not the cause of Jim's current mental disquiet, Spock knew that his younger self was correct. His decision to meld with Jim had had much less to do with expediency and much more to do with longing -- for even a moment in which he could pretend Jim was with him again. "Given your obvious concern for your captain, I am unable to ascertain why you did not remain longer on Earth."

"I have already stated that I had reasons to visit New Vulcan," he said. "They were -- logical. And, again as I have already stated, the captain's health was no longer in question."

"His life may not have been in danger in longer, but his health was far from recovered," the elder argued. "He is still, as humans say, on the mend. Did you not see where you might've offered needed support during that recovery?"

"The captain is well-supported by many," the young Spock said. "Dr. McCoy, for one, but also many other members of the crew. My presence was hardly necessary."

"And yet you were the one at his side when his life almost ended," the elder said in the gentlest way he could. "He might've liked to have the same comfort when he was not dying."

His fingers tightened around the eating utensil he held. "He told you of that?" Spock asked.

"He did," the elder confirmed. 

Spock looked away. After a moment of silence, he spoke. "When I contacted you during the crisis with Khan, you said that your own encounter with Khan had ended with great cost."

"And you're wondering if my Captain Kirk died as yours did?"

"The thought did cross my mind," Spock said. 

"He did not," the elder said. "However, in the ultimate fallout of our -- encounter -- with him, my captain lost much, including his son."

The young one's eyes widened. "Son?"

"We were much older than you are now," Spock explained. "But Khan delivered upon us both a grief that left its mark for the rest of his life -- and mine."

"You have reverted to being vague and inexact," the younger one pointed out. "Your decision to withhold knowledge from me about my possible future continues to be...flexible, at best."

Spock couldn't help but be amused, by both himself and his younger counterpart. "You are correct once again. I am resolved to trying my best not to unduly affect your decisions, as you are not me and this is not my time, no matter how similar it is. However, it is difficult at my age not to look at this as a chance to right past wrongs. Even as my decisions and even my mistakes made me who I am, I wish to correct them for you, no matter the illogical nature of that wish."

"I appreciate the impulse," the younger one. "Even if I agree with your resolution intellectually. Emotionally..." Spock trailed off. "You appear to have reached a level of serenity that seems unattainable from my perspective. I am...curious as to how you got there but I...fear that knowing the path might alter mine in a negative way."

"We concur, then," Spock said. "It is illogical and, moreover, wrong for me to try and re-live my life through you. We already very different beings, Spock, since I did not suffer the losses you have at your age. However, I will always believe that your path lies with Starfleet, which is why I allowed myself that one interference."

"Not just Starfleet," his counterpart said. "With Captain Kirk."

"Yes," the elder admitted. "I believe that he was that important to my own life that it was not something I would want Nero's interference in this timeline to cost you."

Spock regarded him for a moment, dark eyes searching. The elder kept his face as placid as possible, waiting until his younger counterpart spoke the thoughts crowding into his mind. "Captain Kirk is not someone I would necessarily discern as a facilitator of serenity."

Spock almost laughed. "No, but on this, I hope you will trust me."

"He is...my friend," Spock said, uncertainly, as if he were still testing the word, the idea. The older Spock wondered if it was because his younger self was still so unsure of what friendship was or because, as he hoped, he already knew that his feelings were deeper than the word implied. "He is...complex and sometimes difficult to understand. I find myself challenged by him, but I welcome that challenge."

"But you did not want to help him through his recovery," Spock said, back to his original point.

"The circumstances of his death compromised me," the young one admitted quietly, a confession of shame. Spock knew the young being could make it to no one other than himself. "I needed what New Vulcan could offer me in order to rebuild my control."

"Have you succeeded?" Spock asked.

"Negative," the younger said, his meal long forgotten -- by both of them, Spock realized. "But I will master myself before I return to him. After I am assured that his recovery is unimpeded, of course."

"Of course," Spock echoed. "May I offer you advice on this matter, young one?"

"Will it again break you from your resolution to allow my destiny to develop without your interference?" 

"To some degree, but only as any advice would," Spock answered.

The young Spock nodded. "Very well."

"A dear friend watched me make similar struggles for many years," he began. "But one thing he said returned to me in one of my greatest hours of need. He had asked me why I struggled so much to be part of one world when I could instead fight to be the best of both. After a time, that was what became my goal. To be the best of both parts of myself -- Vulcan and Human."

"The friend you mention was your Captain Kirk."

"So obvious?"

"You rarely mention others from your past," the young one pointed out. "It was a logical conclusion."

The elder stood, collecting his forgotten plate. "I find I am not as hungry as I thought."

Spock pushed his away as well, before he, too, rose. "I find the same," he said. "If you will excuse me, I will retire. My meditation has been less than satisfactory the last 1.25 days."

For longer than that, the old one knew, but he didn't want to embarrass the young one before him by pointing it out. "Of course. I will speak to you tomorrow."

His younger counterpart offered a respectful nod and then exited Spock's quarters, leaving the Vulcan elder in silence. He busied himself with discarding their half-eaten dinners, then retired to his own meditation mat. His thoughts went back to the conversation he'd just had with his young counterpart, over the emotions that had been so easily discerned in the young Vulcan's words and manners. Even without any physical contact, the emanations of his emotions had been strong enough that Spock could pick of faint traces of confusion, concern and a longing that Spock thought might've been for _his_ Captain Kirk. The admission at all that Jim's death had compromised him was monumental and Spock well remembered his own shame at the realization that he ached for Jim in all ways one could. He knew what it was to feel shame and confusion and the dichotomy of the strong emotions that Vulcans denied having, at thinking it a sign of his human weakness instead of accepting it as the truest part of himself. To accept the latter had taken five years of friendship and silent love, then three years alone at Gol until V'Ger had burned away the illusion of perfect logic and _this simple feeling_ had been revealed to him as the miracle it truly was.

This Spock and Kirk were not the same as him and his captain, Spock knew; the changes to the timeline had made sure of that. The younger ones were more volatile, more fragile and vulnerable than he and Jim had been when they had met, both more secure in their personal and professional places in the world. But Spock thought that that difference might allow these two to understand what they could have together if they could cast out their fears.

Despite his best efforts, Spock realized that the young Jim had created a crack in his Vulcan shell and hope, the dangerous thing that it was, refused to die completely, be it hope for the young ones or for himself.

**

By the time Bones rolled over and started to grumble curses under his breath -- a sure sign that he was waking up -- Jim had already checked his messages, started a pot of coffee and finished his first sugar-laced cup. 

"Morning sunshine," Jim teased when one of Bones's eyes crept open. 

"Ugh," came the doctor's succinct reply. "This couch of yours should be logged as a torture device."

"It's better than the floor," Jim said with a grin, repaying his friend's favor from the morning before by presenting him with a cup of coffee. Bones managed to pull himself into a sitting position, still sleep-mussed and fuzzy from the few hours of rest he'd managed. Jim threw himself down next to his friend, still nursing his second cup of java.

Bones took a long drink from his cup and took a deep breath. Finally, he managed to open both eyes and he used that fact to pin Jim with a disapproving look. "What's with the shit-eating grin?"

"Oh, you know," Jim said, grin still widening. "Just trying to decide which is more awesome: coming back from the dead or bringing someone else back. You know, since I've done both in the last two months."

Bones glared over the rim of his cup. "I hate you," he said. "And everyone else with your identical DNA."

Bones's apparent ire did nothing to temper Jim's excitement because the fact was that his apartment currently housed two individuals whose DNA said they were James T. Kirk -- Jim and the sixty-year-old man asleep in his bed. 

Jim still wasn't sure of the sequence of events from eighteen hours before, when he'd snapped back to himself after another dream of the Nexus, only to find himself in respiratory distress while Bones hollered and banged on his locked bedroom door. The moment had only gotten more surreal when Jim had realized that he wasn't alone in his room -- there was the other James Kirk, also looking like breathing was a dicey proposition, slumped into a weak heap of limbs against one wall. Finally, Jim had recovered enough to release the lock on his door and Bones had rushed in, medical tricorder and hypos ready. But even Bones had balked at the sight of the second Kirk.

Now, the older Kirk was still presumably asleep in the privacy of Jim's room, recovering from whatever he had endured to drag himself through the weavings of space-time to land in Jim's here-and-now and become corporeal again. He had only been conscious a few minutes once Jim and Bones had rushed to his side, but he had recognized his younger self and seemed cognizant of having come out of the Nexus. The two of them had pulled him onto the bed where Bones had checked him out and proclaimed that he was suffering from exhaustion and a massive imbalance in his body's chemical make-up. 

Bones had also declared, eyes wide and disbelieving, that his tricorder confirmed what Jim already knew: that the older man was Jim's genetic twin.

"Liar," Jim said, thoughts catching up to the present. "You're just trying to distract me from saying I told you so. Well, tough. _I told you so_."

Bones sighed, accepting Jim's smug declaration. "You have to admit it was a crazy ass story, Jim," he said. "I still wouldn't believe it if I didn't have irrefutable proof of it."

"He _is_ kind of irrefutable, isn't he?" Jim said, with a nod toward his room.

"Oh yeah," Bones said, leaning over to check on medical tricorder that was still spitting out readings from the life signs monitor Bones had slapped on Jim's counterpart. "Vitals are steady and everything's normal. It looks like we're doomed to having two Jim Kirks after all."

Jim just grinned.

Bones nodded toward the computer console. "Have you broken the good news to his hobgoblin yet?" he wanted to know.

Jim shook his head. "I want to give him some time first, you know? Once he's awake and aware, we'll make that call together. I can't even imagine what'll be like for either of them. Spock's lived without him for almost a hundred years."

Bones shook his head, like he couldn't imagine it either. They lapsed into comfortable silence as Bones nursed his way through his first cup of coffee and Jim finished his second. It still seemed unreal that Jim had did it -- that just on the other side of the wall was the other him, the one he had saved and dragged back into the land of the living. Jim didn't know how Spock felt about having the other him around but Jim found himself curious and interested in what he could learn from the older Kirk. As much as they had already shared in their Nexus-dreams, Jim wanted to know more. This was a man who was essentially Jim but who had done so much, who had earned the love of a life mate and his admiral's pips and who had lived through an experience in the Nexus that Jim couldn't begin to understand. 

"How much longer do you think he'll be out?" Jim asked the doctor.

Bones shrugged. "No idea but he's just sleeping now," he said. "He probably just needs the rest."

Jim set down his empty cup, then stretched, arms raised high above his head. "I don't know about you but all this universe-hopping has made me hungry."

"Then whip us something up, kid," Bone said with a wave at the replicator.

"Better yet," Jim began, rising to his feet. He grabbed for his wallet and his credit chip. "How about you head down and get Nadine to do it? And none of that healthy crap, Bones. We're celebrating and the other me deserves a decent welcome-back meal and that doesn't include replicated mush or rabbit food."

"You just lucky that they have those quiches," Bones said, pulling his jeans on over the boxers he'd slept in.

"Yeah, yeah," Jim said, tossing him the chip. "Hurry back."

"Yes, dear," Bones said with a roll of eyes. More seriously, he added, "Comm me if something happens, all right?"

"He's fine, Bones," Jim reminded him. "You said so yourself."

"Watch the tricorder," he warned. "If there's a dangerous drop, the alarms will go off."

"...because you're a creepy asshole who watches me sleep," Jim finished. "I _know_. Now go."

Bones only paused long enough to run a hand through his messy hair before he did as he was bid, leaving Jim alone in the silence of the morning. He was glad that Bones hadn't brought up their other topic of conversation from the night before, which was what they planned on telling Starfleet about Jim's new house guest. Jim knew that the top echelons were aware of who Spock really was but, as a Vulcan, he had deftly asserted that his place was with his people and had been allowed to join them unimpeded. But James T. Kirk was a human and probably bled Starfleet; after what they had endured with Khan, would they be as willing to let a potential asset go, no matter the temporal consequences? Jim wasn't so sure and until he had someone smarter -- namely, Spock -- to discuss it with, he didn't want to take any chances. 

Jim was so immersed in his less-than-pleasant thoughts that he missed the first chime of his door but the second caught his attention. He realized that Bones's hands must've been so full with their breakfast that he couldn't palm the door scanner.

"Coming," he called out, scrambling up from the sofa. "That was fast," he continued, as he opened the door. Only the rest of his sentence trailed off as he looked up and realized that it wasn't Bones standing on the other side of his threshold. It was the elder Vulcan who had recently crossed his mind and the younger version who rarely seemed to leave his thoughts. "Spock," Jim said, figuring the name covered both of them. "What are you two doing here?"

"We were concerned about you, Captain," the younger one said, his expression flinty. 

"May we come in, Jim?" the older one asked.

"Yeah, sure," he said, stepping away to let them enter. He closed the door behind them. "Why were you worried about me?" he asked, although he glanced at the older one. "What did you tell him?"

"That you were suffering from an imbalance of the mind brought on by his inappropriate mind-meld," the younger Spock answered for his counterpart. "An imbalance that could very well continue until you lose all semblance of sanity."

Jim opened his mouth -- then promptly snapped it shut to frown. "Did you just call me crazy?" he asked his first officer, suddenly stung by the fact that his overtures of contact had been ignored, but Spock had been willing to come all the way back from New Vulcan just to insult him to his face.

"He did not," the elder spoke up. "His worry for you simply causes him to choose his words poorly."

"There was nothing poor about my word choice," the younger Spock all but snapped at his older self. "You said that Jim was suffering from memory bleed, which his mind was interpreting as factual constructs. That is a well-accepted definition of insanity in Vulcan medical terms."

"So you both think I'm crazy?" Jim demanded, glaring from one Spock to the other. "That's great! Fortunately, you're both wrong!"

"Jim," the older Spock said, taking a cautious step toward Jim. Jim continued to glare at him, his hurt pushing aside all the affection he felt for this older version of his first officer. "I believe that there may more than simple memory bleed at work here but I am still unsure if I can accept your premise. It is..."

"Damn it, Spock," Jim ground out, still not sure who his anger was for at that moment. "I'm not crazy and I'm not making this up!"

"Captain," the younger began.

"I don't care if you've come all the way from Vulcan to tell me whatever you’re about to say, I don't want to hear it," Jim said sharply. "And if you say one more thing that boils down to me being crazy, I will not be responsible for my actions."

Both Spocks looked stunned into silence, either by Jim's vehemence or the sincerity of the threat, he wasn't sure which. But he was taking a few seconds to bask in the satisfaction of shutting up two nagging Vulcans for the price of one when there was a soft shushing sound followed by a familiar voice that hung heavy in the heated silence.

"I hope," said the older James Kirk, as he stepped out of Jim's bedroom in his red uniform slacks and crisp white shirt, "that this shouting isn't all over me."

Jim had barely registered his counterpart's sudden appearance into the living room when he hear a sharp intake of breath from the being to his left -- the older Spock. The sound drew his sight and when Jim saw the expression on the elder Vulcan's face, his heart stopped. He knew that the conventional wisdom about Vulcans not having emotions was a bullshit one, but he'd never seen such naked emotion on a Vulcan before and it hurt to see it, a sharp uneasy feeling in his gut to see everything plastered across his old friend's face -- the love, the disbelief, the dangerous hope, all twisted together and stretched like agony over the aged features. 

But there was no surprise that that expression was there since Spock had his fathomless gaze fixed Jim's older counterpart who, Jim noticed, was gazing back at Spock with the same frightening intensity, as if he'd failed to notice that anyone else drew breath in his vicinity. And if looking at the older Spock's face was painful, there was no word strong enough to describe the gut-punch sight of his own, older face, suddenly made of fragile hope and longing as his hazel eyes met Spock's dark gaze. Jim prayed to God that that wasn't what he looked like when he looked at his Spock because there was no room for doubt in the old man's expression, no doubt at all of how much that Jim Kirk loved his Spock.

Jim felt like he was holding his breath as he watched them, as he watched the older Kirk take a few shaky steps toward the Vulcan who stood still, rooted to his spot. Their eyes never seemed to leave each other with each slow step that Kirk took until he was close enough for Spock to touch -- which Spock did, just as Kirk did, as if they couldn't believe what was happening without simple contact to affirm what their eyes saw. 

"Jim," the old Vulcan breathed, as if the name had been wrenched from him, and Jim -- the young one -- had never heard anyone say his name like that, like it was a prayer and a benediction, like it was the most important syllable ever uttered. 

"Hey, you," the human replied, a suspicious roughness in his voice that Jim knew meant tears weren't far behind. They leaned toward each other until their foreheads met, skin resting against skin as they shared shuddering breaths. Jim watched as Spock pulled the older Kirk close, fingers clenched in the fabric of Kirk's shirt, desperate and clutching.

" _Jim_ ," Spock said again, voice cracking on the word. His eyes were steady on the other Kirk's face, as if searching for some sign, some small promise that the moment was as real as it seemed. Fighting, Jim knew, against the logic and fear that suppressed his hope.

And then Jim's hands were cupping that old face, his head still bowed to touch Spock's. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?" he asked, his voice trembling with emotion, as if he couldn't decide if he wanted to laugh or cry from the joy of the moment.

"Indeed," Spock whispered as he brought his own hands up to press against Kirk's where they lay against the weathered skin of the Vulcan's cheeks, another subtle caress. Jim watched as Spock twined his fingers around the older Kirk's, suddenly reminded that Vulcans kissed with their hands. 

"Spock," the old Kirk said, still caught between laughter and tears before he leaned in the last little bit until his mouth touched Spock's. For a few seconds, it was nothing but the tenderness of two mouths brushing against each other but then Spock's hands tightened where they were clutched at Kirk and he pulled him closer as the old Vulcan's arms wrapped around the trembling form of his human mate, crushing their bodies together as their lips followed suit, the next kiss startling in its sudden passion. When they pulled apart, Jim watched as the old Vulcan bowed his head until his lips touched pale curve of his bondmate's throat and Kirk raised a hand to touch fingers to the sleek gray hair, as if to soothe the raging emotions of the being who held him so tightly. "I'm so sorry," he whispered into one pointed ear.

Then the front door slid open again but this time it was Bones who barreled into the apartment only to be stopped dead by the tableau before him -- Jim and Spock watching the older two versions of themselves locked in an embrace. "Well I'll be damned," Bones said, breaking the silence as he sat down the bag of food he carried. "What are you two doing here?"

"I think they came to tell me that I'm going crazy from Vulcan voodoo," Jim volunteered. "But I think I might've just proven that statement false."

"Captain," his first officer said, voice strained with some emotion that Jim couldn't name. "Neither I nor my counterpart thought you were 'crazy,' as you keep insisting."

Jim slapped his hands together in a determined gesture. "Bones, drop the food," he ordered. "Commander, I think you and me and Bones here should clear out and give our distinguished friends here a chance to catch up, don't you? In privacy and solitude, of course, I think that's just what the doctor ordered, right, Bones?"

Bones actually flushed red. "Yeah, of course."

"I concur, Captain Kirk," the other Kirk said, a small smile on his face that was an exact replica of one of Jim's. "We have...a lot to catch up on."

"I also concur," the old Vulcan said, eyes still roving over his bondmate's face like he was afraid he'd disappear if he looked away. 

"Well, kids, you heard them, let's pack it up," Jim announced, taking a step toward the door. "Commander," Kirk said again when his Vulcan didn't seem to be ready to move, eyes still glued to the older pair who refused to let an inch of space between them. "You, me, McCoy? The _door_?" he prompted.

"Of course, sir," he said stiffly, as if coming out of a trance. He crossed the room to stand next to Bones, clearly uncomfortable if Jim read the tension in his stance correctly. Jim sighed to himself. 

To his older self, Jim said, "We'll be going now to give you guys a chance to catch up. We'll be back later. _Way_ later. And we'll comm before we head back, okay?"

The older Jim chuckled. "Understood, Captain."

Jim smiled back at him. "Bye, now!" he said, shooing his CMO and First Officer out of the door ahead of him. 

"Jim?" he heard the old Vulcan's voice and knew somehow it was meant for him. He turned around, a question on his face. "Thank you," Spock said simply, arms still around his bondmate.

"No trouble at all, Ambassador," he replied with a wink before he bounded out of the apartment, out into the hall where Bones and Spock waited. Bones still looked a bit pole-axed by the whole thing but Spock -- Spock looked to be in a state of affronted shock that Jim hadn't seen since Pike had made Jim first officer right before he'd beamed over to the Narada. Jim winced at the flash of pain the thought of Pike brought and focused on not letting himself think about Spock's reaction to the fact that their alternate selves were clearly _more_ than friends. "So that was great, right?" he said with false cheerfulness. "We saved the other me, made the other Spock happy, and proved that I haven't, in fact, been driven crazy by having a psycho's blood pumped through me. Not bad for a day's work and it's not even noon."

"And you still haven't eaten," Bones nagged. "Miracle worker or no, you're still on medical leave, Jim."

"We can all go grab a bite together," Jim agreed. "I meant what I said about staying clear of here while they're getting, ah, re-acquainted."

"Nadine's does a mean vegan breakfast platter," Bones said philosophically.

Spock twitched as if he'd been slapped. "I must decline your offer of a meal, Captain," he said, taking a step away from them, everything about him screaming his discomfort. "I find that I am fatigued from the journey here and require rest and meditation."

"Spock..." Jim began but the Vulcan didn't wait for Jim to finish.

"Please let my other self know that I will find quarters on the Starfleet campus if he should need me." Without waiting for an acknowledgement that Jim would comply, Spock was marching away. 

"Well, shit," Jim said with feeling once the Vulcan had disappeared into the elevator.

"Got that in one," Bones said, along with a comforting squeeze on Jim's shoulder. "Maybe he'll come around once the shock's worn off. Finding out that the other yous are romantically involved came out of nowhere from his perspective."

"Yeah," Jim said, finding himself irrationally jealous of the other Kirk, the Kirk who had a Spock that loved him. "Come on. Let's go."

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not to over-share too much, but the reason for my very long absence is that I encountered a medical crisis back in March and it's taken me a very long time to get my act together in the aftermath. As I said in my first note on this fic, it is finished and just in need of editing. Hopefully I will remain on track from now on.


	5. Chapter 5

Captain James T. Kirk, retired, knew that he had probably broken a dozen rules of etiquette since his precipitous return to the world outside of the Nexus, but he had a feeling his younger self didn't mind and would probably even forgive him for his latest lapse. In fact, Jim had a feeling that his younger self had had a pretty good idea of exactly what he and Spock would be doing as soon as he and the others had left.

Just another point of similarity despite the other divergences, he assumed.

The time for words would be soon, Jim knew, but in those first moments, touch had been the best communicator and not only because Spock was a touch telepath. With every brush of skin and press of mouth, with every shaking, disbelieving touch, their ragged bond had soothed itself, reweaving the connection that had remained despite every trial of the last century, filling up the empty places in their souls that had ached for so long. It was better reassurance than any words could be and Jim could feel Spock's desperation for it, for something so tangible that he couldn't deny the reality of Jim's return. And Jim needed it, too, an anchor to this world and this being, something so real that the illusions of the Nexus finally shook loose from his mind.

As they lay tangled together and in the sheets of their borrowed bed, the afternoon sun flooded the chamber with light, touching the aged lines of Spock's beloved face with gold until Jim couldn't resist following its path with his fingers, gliding idle patterns over cheek and jaw, over the meld points that he had recently pressed at, insistent for the reaffirmation of their bond. It was how he felt the tell-tale wetness on that skin, drying salty beneath the pad of his finger.

"Thee weeps?" he asked, the question an echo of one that Spock had once asked him. In the wake of their first bonding, _finally_ , after their separation, after Gol, Jim hadn't been able to help his tears at that moment of happiness. Spock had noticed and had been concerned.

One of Spock's hand came up to press Jim's hand against his face, as he had done before, while the other curled more firmly against the naked skin of Jim's back, drawing him closer. His answer was an echo of Jim's from that long-ago day. "Only from joy, t'hy'la," he murmured, pulling Jim's hand from his face to press a kiss to its palm. 

Jim shuddered from the onslaught of emotion -- both his and Spock's, tangled and joyous and bittersweet. "Oh Spock," he said, tugging his hand free to wrap an arm around his mate, burying himself in the warmth of Spock's body. "Has it really been a century?"

"Yes," Spock said softly, although the more precise answer floated up in his mind, the exact count of decades and years and days since he'd felt Jim's loss. "I could not allow myself to believe, Jim, when your younger self told me of his meetings with you in the Nexus."

"It's a rather extraordinary set of events, I can hardly blame you," Jim assured him. Sadness swept over him. "I'm sorry that I left you alone for so long."

"You are not to blame," Spock told him, his long fingers still gliding over the skin of Jim's back. "And your return is more than I could've ever hoped for. It is the greatest of gifts. There is nothing that the universe could give that would've pleased me more."

Jim smiled, pulling himself up a little so he could look at Spock's face, see the love he knew shone from his eyes. "You, mister, have always been a sweet-talker," he teased before he leaned in to brush his lips against Spock's because he _could_ , because they were together once again. Everything in Spock curled toward him, around him, and it was as dizzyingly heartening as it had been the first time he'd kissed Spock and Spock had responded that way, as if every part of him yearned for Jim, as Jim yearned for him.

When Jim was finally able to pull away, he propped himself up on an elbow. "A hundred years is a long time, you know. Tell me," he commanded. "I know you weren't idle so I want to hear all about how you spent them."

Jim had snatches of those memories in his head, an after-effect of the meld that re-created their bond, but he wanted to hear it all in Spock's deep, rumbling voice while he lazed about in the comfort of Spock's arms. Spock did as he was ordered and began a slow, measured recitation of those lonely years, of his work on Romulus and other crises that he had been personally involved in and Jim wondered at how proud Sarek must've been to see his son follow in his footsteps, after all. Spock's voice grew quiet when he spoke of more personal things, of the pain of his mother's death, the deaths of others that had meant much to the both of them. Jim had expected them, of course, but it still hurt to hear of them, even if the surprising fate of one Montgomery Scott lightened his grief some. Then Spock's words became halting as he gave word to what the meld had already told Jim: that Spock had taken another bondmate after Jim's death.

Even as Spock tried to sound detached as he explained, Jim could feel his self-recrimination, which he tried to put a stop to at once. "You silly Vulcan," he admonished, stopping Spock's words with his mouth, trying to kiss away the lingering guilt. "Do you honestly think I'd prefer you dying from pon farr than to find someone else? Do you think I'd blame you when it was necessary?" The pain of the idea that had haunted Jim in the Nexus had no place in him now, not when he could feel Spock's devotion, not when their minds were entwined again and he knew, in his bones, that the practical reasons Spock had bonded with Saavik -- dear Saavik, Jim thought, always saving his Spock for him -- were nothing to the _love_ he felt for Jim. His voice gentled. "Spock, I am well-aware that Vulcan biology left you with no choice in the matter."

He could feel Spock's relief at Jim's acceptance and Jim wondered for a moment where everyone got the idea that he was a possessive monster who lacked the ability to understand the implications of his century-long absence. "It is not that I doubted your understanding, Jim," Spock said, responding to Jim's unspoken emotions. "But I still felt, even when I thought you dead, that I had betrayed you in some way. My Human side, I suppose, undermining my logic as it often did on matters related to you."

"That's what you get for loving an illogical Human," Jim teased gently. "A logical consequence of your illogical choice."

It was an old joke between them and Spock did smile a little, in that straight-faced way he had. "Indeed," he said, running a hand through Jim's hair, caressing his skull. "One that I will gladly suffer from for the remainder of my days."

_Such a sweet-talker_ , Jim thought fondly even as Spock brought their mouths together in another long, wet kiss, then rolled until he had Jim trapped under him, pressed into the mattress by his warm weight with little chance of escape. Not that Jim ever wanted to escape -- there was no place in any universe he would choose to be that wasn't there, wrapped in Spock's arms, tongues tangled, the heat of Spock's hardness insistent against his thigh. Even in their youth they had wasted so much of their time together in fear and doubt and the universe had made them pay for it most cruelly, separated for a century at the moment when they made promises to finally put themselves first. And so Jim had lived in the purgatory of the Nexus and Spock had immersed himself in the problem of Romulus but the now was what mattered -- that they had come out on the other side and were together once again. Jim would never waste his time again.

After they had sated their physical need for each other once more, Jim reminded Spock that he had yet finished his story of their time apart. "You bonded with Saavik and went back to Romulus," Jim said by way of prompting. "And then?"

Spock slid the palm of his hand against Jim's, a Vulcan caress, before he wrapped his fingers around Jim's, holding them as tightly as his arms had just held his body. "How much did your counterpart tell of you of this new reality?"

"Not much," he said, fascinated anew by the tangle of their hands, his own skin somehow still tanned, Spock's olive coloring as much a contrast as its more papery texture. "Time travel, evil Romulans. That you were here."

So Spock explained about the supernova that destroyed Romulus and about red matter. He told Jim about Nero, whose focus on revenge and destruction uncomfortably reminded Jim of Khan. Spock spoke of the changes in the timeline wrought by the destruction of the Kelvin, which included the elder Kirk's death and created the much-altered version of Jim that had saved him from the Nexus.

"I had wondered," Jim admitted. "What had changed him. He is...not me. I see glimmers of my youth in him but we're not the same person at all. I can't imagine what it would've been like to lose my father before I knew him. There are things I couldn't have imagined surviving without his support."

"I am glad you did not know the same pain that this other Jim has," Spock agreed. "When I realized what my failure had cost him, I mourned. Of every being in this universe, I had hurt the one that was closest to my own heart."

"He's quite fond of you, too," Jim said, humor curling through him. "That was something we discussed in the Nexus."

Spock caught the humor, the mischief and correctly guessed the reason. "He told you of that, then?" There was a rumble deep in Spock's chest, in his mind, that echoed Jim's amusement.

"He did," Jim said.

"It was a generous offer," Spock said. "But he is not you."

"He'd need to age about thirty or so years first," Jim quipped.

Spock's hand turned Jim's face up to his, trapping him so that he could not look away from that dark gaze. "I loved you when you were not much older than he is now," Spock said. "So that is not what I meant. He is not _you_ , Jim. It is you I love, who is bound to me in ways that I still do not understand. There is no facsimile that could be close enough, similar enough to be what you are to me. There is only you. Do you doubt that, after all we have endured for this?"

"No, t'hy'la," Jim whispered, voice rough with emotion. Thirty years -- or perhaps a hundred and thirty -- and Jim's heart could still stutter with Spock's declaration of love. He didn't understand it, either, but he had long realized how incredibly lucky he was to have it -- to have Spock. He gripped Spock as a sudden spike of passion spiraled through his skin. "I need you, Spock."

"I am yours."

The way they crashed together, mind and body, might've been the lovemaking meant for younger men, but Jim knew that their bond was eternal, beyond such prosaic things as age and even death. There was no place for anything there but Jim and Spock and the connection that had defined them both in ways they were still discovering.

_Until the end of time_ , Jim promised silently, along the bond.

_Beyond even the universe_ , Spock agreed. _We have already proven that._.

Jim smiled against Spock's mouth and let himself be lost in it.

**

As Spock had told his captain, it was a simple matter for him to make use of the temporary quarters that Starfleet made available to officers in need and it was with no small relief that Spock palmed the lock and let the door slide closed behind him. His haste had been disproportionate to the occasion, he admitted to himself, but even if there were no tangible enemies nipping at his heels, there had been the feeling of it in the air. Illogical, he knew, but Spock had also come to realize that it was something he was doomed to be, as long as he continued to consort with humans.

The lodgings were utilitarian and sparse, but the replicator was there to provide any essentials it did not provide. With his meager luggage delivered there at his direction, the only thing Spock needed from it were candles; what he needed most of all was meditation and he knew he needed to try, even if he'd only fail once more.

How could he not with the image still burned into his mind of his older self embracing the newly-rescued alternate version of James T. Kirk, the soft words and touches between them a clear sign of what they were to each other. Lovers; t'hy'la; bondmates -- all things that made Spock ache in ways he did not want to admit when he looked upon his own James T. Kirk. It was even more maddening in that moment than it had been for the weeks before and that Spock would've thought highly improbable if he'd been asked. And yet, it was.

He lit the candles and situated himself on his meditation mat, desperately trying to find his center. But it was that same desperation that drove it away, that clutching need to escape the emotions roiling within him. The maelstrom wasn't comparable to the devastation of his species but it was the closest pain he'd felt near it, illogical for all that it focused on one person instead of billions.

One who, in the end, hadn't even been lost.

Even death bowed to the will of the James Kirk, it seemed. Spock wondered if his efforts had been lost before they'd even truly begun.

When he'd first met his Captain as a cadet, his opinion had been quick to form and solidify -- James Kirk was arrogant, undisciplined, cocky and obviously unfit for Starfleet. Spock had been secure in that judgment, just as he had been in so many he had made. Then suddenly, there had been Nero and Kirk's stubborn disrespect and his pleading blue eyes and unexpected core of steel and all of Spock's assumptions had shattered and turned to dust. After that first mission together, Kirk had become something unknown and, really, his older counterpart's words had just been the final push in the direction he'd wanted all along. Spock had wanted to join Kirk on the Enterprise, had wanted a chance to know where he had misjudged before.

Spock had thought he could learn without entanglement, safe behind his Vulcan logic and shields and his relationship with Nyota. He hadn't realized that there was no distance great enough to protect one's self from Jim -- from his intelligence and humor, from his bravery and vulnerability, from that which made him uniquely _Jim_ , even across universes. And even once he had accepted that he wasn't a neutral observer anymore, he hadn't thought what he'd felt was -- what he felt. Because, like everything else about Jim, even love for him didn't follow any prescribed notions Spock was aware of.

It was certainly different from how he understood his feelings for Nyota. Between them, there was affection, attraction to her aesthetically pleasing form, comfort in their shared interests and ideals. _Comfort_ was perhaps the best summation for his relationship with Nyota. She brought to him an anchor he'd needed in the vexing human world, the proverbial safe harbor.

Of the many words Spock could use to describe Jim, _safe_ was not one of them. If Nyota was the harbor, then Jim was the storm -- bright, powerful, without rein. It should've repulsed Spock, so tied to his logic but it hadn't. It had been overwhelming at times and confusing, but also...exciting and not without its moments of lull that were something more harmonious than mere comfort.

Serenity, Spock had called it on the face of his future self. 

And then Spock had almost lost Jim, just as he'd begun to understand a little of what his captain made him feel and Spock had felt something inside crack open as he'd watched Jim tremble and fade from life, the tectonic plates of his katra shifting under an impossible pressure. With it had come illumination but also horror and indescribable loss and even Jim's unlikely resurrection hadn't eased it all.

Because, Spock had asked himself, watching anxiously while he'd waited for his captain to wake up, what was he supposed to do with this hard-won knowledge of himself? How was he supposed to go on, understanding himself as he'd come to in those terrible moments?

His answer had been to break off his relationship with Nyota and retreat to New Vulcan, looking for the solace that he hadn't even found on his home planet as a child but clinging to the hope of it anyway. His father's home had offered shelter but Spock hadn't been able to do what he'd hoped and tame the unwanted emotions that threatened to choke him at every turn. Even regular meditation had become difficult and his rest had been uneasy. He had worried if he would ever be able to find the calm he needed to return to Jim's side, no matter how much Jim seemed to want him there.

And now Spock's concern had brought him back and he'd been faced with the last piece of the puzzle, the one that neatly explained so much about his alternate self, his persistent meddling on the point of Jim. Because that Spock hadn't simply found friendship in his James Kirk -- no, he had found his mate and they had shared something that had lasted in that Spock's heart for a century even though he'd thought his Kirk dead and lost. That Spock had looked as if his whole world had come back to him when he'd laid eyes on the other Kirk, the aged human himself looking years younger as he'd basked in that tender expression. And Spock's Jim, the Jim Kirk of this reality -- he hadn't been surprised at all. Only Spock had been blindsided by the reunion they'd witnessed.

As Spock watched the candles around burn their wax away, he tried to decide which emotion in his gut was the most prevalent. There were so many -- strong, too, reminding Spock of why Surak's teachings were so correct when it came to the management of the depths of the Vulcan soul -- and they impossibly tangled, one leading to the other to another. There was his love, bitter and unreturned, the ache for Jim he knew would never be reciprocated. Jim had taken pains to show him friendship but if there had been more tender feelings, surely he would've spoken to him, especially knowing as he seemed of their counterparts' bond? There was his disappointment that his love was unrequited and the envy he felt toward his counterpart who had gained the love of the man he'd wanted and had him still, despite all the odds. But, Spock decided, the more prevalent emotion he felt...was anger.

Taking another deep breath, Spock focused on the last dying flame of the candle in front of him, determined to find some measure of peace before he had to face them all again. Thanks to his older self, he was as entangled in this surprising turn of events as he was in his own emotions and he needed to extricate himself from one before he could even fathom the other.

As he blessedly began to slip down into himself in the familiar levels of deepening meditation, Spock was almost grateful that there was a temporal conundrum on which to focus as long as it distracted him from other things.

Even, if like in everything, it seemed to center on James T. Kirk.

**

Vulcans needed less sleep than Humans, but that wasn't the only reason that Spock found himself awake while his bondmate slumbered at his side. Coming back from the dead would tax the most robust of constititutions, as Spock was intimately aware and he had no doubt that there was still some fatigue in Jim left over from his ordeal. But Spock didn't mind the quiet and he certainly didn't mind being able to bask in Jim's presence without even Jim to interrupt him. It still felt like a dream he'd wake from, some fantasy that would cruelly fade when he looked too closely; if their bond wasn't something that no Vulcan could deny, then Spock might've felt fear of such an awakening. But his soul knew, even if his mind hadn't accepted it, that his bondmate was back and alive and his once again.

Jim, of course, hadn't aged a day since Spock had last seen him, since they had parted before Jim had joined some of their old crew members on the Enterprise-B, even down to the uniform he'd been wearing when Spock had seen him come out of the younger Jim's bedroom. Spock remembered that day with uneasy clarity, every casual word and moment they had shared as Jim had hurried out, Spock's own preoccupation making his goodbye a distracted one. He had regretted it for years, even though he knew that Jim had not died in doubt of his feelings but now that regret was fading with so many others. Somehow, he had been given another chance with Jim and he planned to hold tightly to it.

The natural light gilded both the gray and blond in Jim's hair and, relaxed as he was in sleep, it made him look years younger than his six decades, more like the man Spock had come back to after Gol. Luckily, the years had made Jim a deeper sleeper than he'd been as a very young man and not only could Spock looked as long as he liked, he could touch as well, the trace of his fingers drawing nothing more than a sigh from Jim. His touch confirmed what his eyes and psychic abilities told him: Jim was there, warm and alive.

Spock had not expected much happiness to find him in these last years of his life. Stranded as he was in this alternate past, one that his own actions had helped warp, he had planned to do his utmost to right the wrongs of his actions where he could, to make a positive difference where he could without upsetting the timeline further. He had expected peace, perhaps, and a gentle contentment once he had realized that the younger Jim Kirk held some small attachment to him but even that had seemed like a gift. Even that small bit of Jim would've been enough. But now...now _his_ Jim was there again, something he had lost almost a century before he'd come through into the past. It was something he probably would've never had in his correct timeline and it was quite the irony that one of his worst mistakes had resulted in _this_ , the return of the other half of his soul. When he had been younger and more philosophical, Spock might've fretted about ramifications of such a confluence of events; now, however, he simply thanked the universe that Jim had come back to him.

As much as he was loathed to pull himself from Jim's side, the insistent sound of young Kirk's home comm made it necessary, especially since Spock was reminded of the young man's promise to call. Spock gently disentangled himself from Jim's arms and left him to sleep, brushing his lips against Jim's brow even as he collected his discarded robes. Quietly, he made his way into the living room where the comm was still beeping, flashing up Jim's personal comm number and a station number that Spock did not recognize. With a sigh, he settled himself in front of the monitor and answered it, watching as the face of his bondmate's younger counterpart appeared.

"Spock!" he said with a grin. "Finally."

"I apologize," Spock said. "We were sleeping."

Jim's grin curled up a little more. "Is that what we're calling it these days?" 

"Jim," Spock said in mock admonishment.

"No, I'm just saying," Jim asked, laughing. "Because you have a _thing_ right here." Jim pointed to his own face, indicating a stripe of skin just below his ear. "There, on your face."

Suddenly, Dr. McCoy's face appeared on the screen, looking back at Spock with squinty-eyed intensity. "That's not a thing, Jim," he said. "That, in the vernacular, is a _hickey_."

Spock ignored the teasing as Jim playfully pushed McCoy out of view, instead choosing to favor them with an unimpressed look that he had used for decades on his own Jim and Leonard. Jim, still smiling, apologized. "I couldn't help myself," he said. "It's just...I'm happy for you."

Spock felt his expression soften. "I know you are," he said. "And I owe you an apology, for doubting you. I also owe you my gratitude which I do not think mere words can even express."

"It's fine," Jim said with a wave of his hand. "I understand, okay? It sounded crazy. And I was glad to help you and the other me out. I'm glad that you won't be alone now."

There was a wistfulness in his voice that Spock could plainly hear. "You called for a reason and I seemed to have distracted you from it," Spock observed. "I apologize again."

"Really I was just checking in," Jim said. "I've been at Bones's place most of the day but I figured I'd give you guys another hour or so and head back? I'll bring some takeout with me, I refuse to feed the other-me replicated food as soon as he hits Earth."

"That would be agreeable," Spock said with a nod. "I believe you and he have similar culinary tastes."

"Chinese it is then," Jim said. "They'll have something vegetarian for you."

"And for my younger self," Spock added, only to see Jim wince. "Not for my younger self?"

"He disappeared as soon as he got outside of my apartment," Jim admitted. "He looked he wanted to anywhere that wasn't around me." He grimaced. "I guess that's what he thought of that."

Spock now understood the wistfulness he'd noted before. "You think he was reacting poorly to the truth about my connection with Jim?"

"Yeah," Jim said. "He was -- horrified! Then he ran off saying he needed to rest and you could find him staying at the Academy."

Spock thought about the longing that seemed evident in his younger self, for this younger version of his bondmate. "You might be mistaken, Jim."

"No, I'm pretty sure I'm on point." Jim sighed, looking away from the screen long enough to smooth away the emotion on his face. "Don't worry about it. We need to talk about important stuff, like what we're going to do about the other-me now that he's here pretty unexpectedly."

Spock nodded. "That should be the topic of conversation during dinner," he told Jim. "And I believe that my younger self should be present.”

"Really?"

"I will contact him," Spock said. "Please procure enough vegetarian nourishment for the both of us."

Jim snorted. "Sure, sure. I'll see you two in about an hour?"

"That would be agreeable," he said. "Spock out."

Once the screen of the comm had gone dark, Spock sat in the silence, thinking. He did not think he was wrong about the younger Spock's feelings when it came to Jim and it wasn't unheard of to think that they had both missed the signals that the other was sending. He and his Jim had done so for years, chalking up their closeness as that of friends only, ignoring the truth that burned in both of them. And these younger versions had a more complicated history to overcome and were younger, less worldly in matters of the heart. Somehow, it seemed they had missed the obvious clues.

As he reached for the comm to contact the Academy and locate his younger self, Spock decided that he would keep an eye on how they reacted that evening. And once he was sure of the truth, perhaps he could do something to help them along -- he owed the young Jim no less, given what Jim had done for him.  
First, he would convince the younger Spock to come to dinner that evening. Then he would spend the last of his hour of solitude with his Jim, further convincing himself of the miracle he'd been granted.

That decided, Spock made the call.

 

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this entire fic (all 50k or so of it) just so I could write the scene that started this chapter. I hope y'all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.


	6. Chapter 6

Jim had suffered through a lot of awkward get-togethers in his life and while dinner that night wasn't the most awkward, it was certainly pretty close to the top. Actually -- Jim looked around the room and revised his thought -- there was only one person in his apartment who was truly awkward and that was his first officer. Even Bones, who still wasn't sure how he felt about sitting in a room that boasted two Jim Kirks and two Spocks, was relaxed enough to kick back and chat politely with his friends' older counterparts, bleeding Southern hospitality to the end. And the other Kirk and Spock were completely comfortable, although Jim supposed that an afternoon of sex in _his_ bed could've had something to do with that. 

More often than not, Jim found himself studying the older pair, and not just because he wanted a reason to avoid any kind of eye contact with his Spock. After their emotional reunion earlier in the day, Jim might've expected them to be more demonstrative in their affection for each other, but they weren't. Sure, they sat together and probably a little more closely than casual friends would, but aside from the warm glances, they've could been sitting together anywhere, even on the bridge of the Enterprise. But even without any kind of overt gestures, Jim could still sense the connection between them, the intimacy they had and it almost hurt to see it because Jim wanted it, too. He wanted it with his Spock and his Spock couldn't even look him in the eye.

When that thought passed through his head, Jim decided the time for idle chitchat was over and it was time to get down to business. He pushed away the half-eaten plate of noodles he'd been pretending to eat. "So," he began. "The reason that we decided to have this little dinner meeting is that while it's awesome that the universe now has two Jim Kirks, it does present some issues that we need to deal with."

"You got that right," Bones muttered, although it was less about saying something helpful and more about being his usual grumpy self.

"Starfleet should probably be made aware of the development," the younger Spock offered, even if the words were almost hesitant.

"Agreed," Jim said. "I've already learned my lesson about lies of omission when it comes to Starfleet. After everything, I'm not going to make that mistake again." He tried to smile at Spock, to show him that he didn't have any hard feelings. "But my issue is that given everything that's happened recently, I'm not sure I feel confident enough to trust Starfleet."

"From all reports, Jim, Admiral Marcus was acting alone," Spock reminded him. "Surely, you don't fear reprisal?"

"No, that's not what I meant," Jim told him. "I mean...how can we be sure that someone else in Starfleet won't feel the same way Marcus did? How do I know that they won't try to force the other me into revealing secrets or technology or whatever?"

"That's not how Starfleet works, Jim," Bones said.

"After what happened with Khan, I'm not sure I know how it really works," Jim said. "I know how it's supposed to, but I'm not sure what's really going on anymore."

" _Khan_?" asked the other Kirk, shooting a worried glance in his bondmate's direction.

His Spock laid a comforting hand on his arm. "Later, Jim," he promised. "For now, I think we need to focus on your younger self's concerns."

"Do you truly not trust Starfleet anymore?" the young Spock asked him, eyes dark and concerned.

"Not really, I just -- there's not really a rulebook for this kind of thing," he said.

"Actually there is," the older Kirk told him.

"Really?"

"The temporal prime directive would apply," the older Spock said. 

"There's a temporal one, too?" Jim asked.

For a moment, it looked like his Spock was going to roll his eyes at him and the rush of fondness Jim felt at the familiar gesture was overwhelming. He held back the impulse, however. "Have you not read all of the Starfleet Regulations, Captain?"

"Of course....not," Jim replied, grinning a little. "That's what I have you for."

Bones snorted, shooting Jim a warning look because he knew better than anyone that there wasn't much of anything related to Starfleet that Jim hadn't read. 

"It is in a little-known addendum," the younger Spock said. "I can see where it would be easily missed."

"My counterpart is correct," the older Spock said. "Due to the sensitive nature of time travel issues, it is not well-known but it does exist. Thanks to events both around the founding of the Federation and in the 31st century, it was necessary to include it in Starfleet Regulations."

"Huh?" Bones asked succinctly.

"Precisely," the other Kirk said. "Temporal nonsense has always given me a headache, too."

"So what does this temporal prime directive say _precisely_?" Jim wanted to know.

"Something very similar to what the original one says," the other Kirk explained. "It forbids meddling with the timeline and it gives protections to those such as myself and Spock who are displaced. So if you're worried that Starfleet is going to try to torture details of the future out of me, I think I'll be safe."

"As long as you don't end up in Section 31's hands," Jim pointed out.

From the way the other Kirk's eyes shuttered just a little, Jim knew that he wasn't the only Kirk in the room to have had a bad run-in with Starfleet's covert branch. "That is a fair distinction," he admitted. "But I have faith that either you or Commander Spock here can make sure that whoever you decide to go to about my existence won't be?"

Jim met his Spock's eyes across the room, both of them obviously thinking through the various admirals they could approach. There was a quick slice of pain that the obvious answer was no longer available, especially when Jim knew he could've trusted Pike with his -- and his counterpart's -- life.

"I would think Admiral Nogura," young Spock said at last. 

Jim thought about Nogura -- hard-assed from his reputation but also fair. He'd never heard anything about him other than about his high, exacting standards. "Agreed," he said. "Tough but fair from all accounts," he explained. "I don't think we have to worry about him working with Section 31."

He was surprised to see a smile on his counterpart's face when he glanced his way. "Good to know that some things haven't changed between the universes," he said. "My Admiral Nogura had much the same reputation."

"The _revered_ Admiral Nogura," the older Spock murmured, making Kirk laugh. 

"So it's been said," Kirk nodded. He turned to the younger Spock. "Can you set a meeting for us, with him? As soon as possible would be best."

"Hey," Jim protested. "Why are you asking him?"

"Because you're still on medical leave," Kirk reminded him. "You shouldn't be setting any meetings, unless the meaning of the term has changed in this universe."

"He's got you there," Bones said, not bothering to hide his laughter.

Jim accepted defeat while his counterpart turned back to the younger Spock. "Can you do that for us, Commander?"

"Of course," Spock said, looking a little wide-eyed at being addressed by the other Kirk. "I am certain that Admiral Nogura will find time for us as soon as I express the nature of the situation."

Kirk nodded, relaxing. "Then that's settled," he said. "I'll report myself to Starfleet as per temporal regulations and then hopefully, I'll be free to go on my way."

"And your plans once that's cleared away?" Bones asked. 

Kirk glanced at his Spock. "Well, Spock has already been making a place for himself on New Vulcan and I'd hate to upset that. So unless he or the Vulcan government has some objection, I'll probably emigrate there."

"New Vulcan will allow the bonded mate of any Vulcan to re-settle there without question," the young Spock said. Jim noticed the slightest hint of green on the top of his ears. "Unless...I have misinterpreted your relationship with my counterpart."

Kirk held out his two paired fingers in the traditional Vulcan way; his Spock returned the gesture. "You have not," Kirk said, although the words were really unneeded. 

Spock nodded, then rose to his feet. "I feel that I am still fatigued," he announced. "I will contact Admiral Nogura in the morning and let you know when he can meet with us."

"Thank you, Spock," the older Vulcan said. 

As he navigated the crowded space for the door, his eye met Jim's. "Captain," he said with a short nod, his version of a terse goodbye.

"Spock," Jim managed to say in response.

No one spoke again until the door closed behind him. Then Kirk said, "I didn't mean to scare the kid off."

"I don't think you did," Jim said with a sigh. "I think it was me."

Since no one knew what to say to _that_ , Bones tactfully changed the subject, engaging the older couple in conversation so that Jim was free to brood in peace. It was just another reason that he was Jim's best friend.

**

Jim watched as his younger self wandered away from the conversation that the universe's version of Bones was determined to keep up between four of them, even in the wake of the younger Spock's terse farewell. The other Jim Kirk spent several minutes not paying attention to what McCoy and Spock were discussing before he gave up the pretense entirely, ducking into the kitchen as he mumbled something about needing a glass of water. It was a flimsy pretext, especially when he didn't re-appear even after several minutes. Jim exchanged a look with Spock, who nodded, before Jim quietly excused himself to follow after the young man.

He had at least poured himself a glass of water, Jim noted, although it sat untouched on the counter. Instead, the younger Kirk's eyes were focused on some distant point outside of his window, where the sun was setting blood-red over the ocean. 

Jim leaned against the counter. "I've just realized," he began. "We talked about many things while I was in the Nexus, but we didn't say much about your relationship with your Spock. But I think I've just been treated to some insight on the subject."

The sound his younger self made was supposed to be laugh, although it was huffy and bitter. "Yeah," he said. "He likes me way less than your Spock does you. And, actually, less than your Spock likes me, too."

"Hmm," Jim said, replaying the events in his mind. Any opinion he might've had wasn't reliable, not with the small amount of data he had to draw it from. "My Spock mentioned that you hadn't had a very good start but that you still worked together well."

"I cheated on his test and he tried to have me thrown out of Starfleet," he said. "It's been downhill ever since."

"The Kobayashi Maru?" Jim asked. At the younger one's nod, he laughed. "The points of similarity continue to astound me. I suppose you re-wrote the code for the test so it was winnable?"

"Yeah," Jim said. "You too?"

"Me, too," Jim confirmed. "I got a medal for creative thinking for it."

"I got a disciplinary hearing and was almost tossed out of the 'fleet," the young one said. "No offense, but I've got to wonder why everything seems to have turned out better for you."

"I don't know," Jim said honestly. He couldn't even argue with the other Kirk's assessment -- this universe's Jim had suffered more setbacks than Jim had at a similar age. "But it's made you who you are -- which is _you_ and not me."

The younger Jim shrugged, eyes still looking out over the ocean in the distance.

The older Jim fought the urge to sigh. "My Spock wasn't exactly cuddly when I met him, either," he said instead. "It wasn't as bumpy as what you two have seen but he clung to his logical Vulcan armor with a fierceness that was far _from_ logical. Yours even more so, I think."

"It took me dying before he could even admit that we might be friends," the younger Jim said. "And now he can't even look at me. I don't know what's going on in his head."

"Maybe he's scared because he realized that he cared and then he almost lost you?" the older Jim said. "He's lived through enough hurts already, from what I understand."

"I honestly have no clue," Jim said, raking a hand through his hair. It was strange but also fascinating to see his own nervous ticks reflected back at him, mirrored in his walking memory of what he used to look like. "I don't know if he left because of that or if because he realized what I'd been trying to say right before I...or if he's just weirded out because of you two."

"Us too? Me and Spock?" Jim guessed.

Kirk nodded. "It's not like me or Spock had never told him about...you know -- the whole bonded mates thing -- before now. Then he saw you guys today..."

"And so that's definitely not a secret anymore," Jim concluded. "This is why I've never been a fan of encountering alternate universes. It tends to muddle things."

"Who are you telling?" the young one said with a bit of gallows' humor. He finally reached for that glass of water he'd come looking for and took a sip. "Not that I'm not glad to have you old guys around."

"Well I'm certainly glad to be around again," Jim said. "And I appreciate the fact that you almost died because of it -- both before and after we met."

The younger Jim waved his glass of water as if to dismiss the thanks. "Bones just likes to worry, I was fine," he said. "And before, that was Khan's fault."

Jim felt the same shudder go through him as he always did when he thought about Khan, the same rage that still pricked under his skin. It rarely showed on his face but it was there, burning, all the grief that he'd felt as he'd had to watch Spock die. 

Still, his younger self must've seen part of it because he commented. "You encountered Khan."

Jim's answer was a slow nod. "I was much older than you."

"But you didn't die obviously."

"No," Jim said, swallowing against an influx of emotion. Spock was _alive_ , just on the other side of the wall. "But Spock..."

The younger Kirk's blue eyes widened, a stricken expression flickering over his features before he schooled them. "He came back, too."

"Yes, although I'm assuming in a different method from you since I assume there was no Genesis Device in this reality?"

Jim shook his head. "No, Bones used Khan's blood. The transfusion was able to fix the damage." His expression turned contemplative. "So this is a thing you guys do? Die and come back to each other?"

"Well we're only even now," the older one quipped. "Hopefully neither one of us dies out of turn again."

"Yeah." There was still some lingering emotion on his face, like he was perhaps still thinking about a world without a Spock in it. Jim knew the bleakness of such thoughts. "I'm glad it was me," he said after a moment. "And not my Spock. I don't even want to think about it."

Jim couldn't help but offer his younger counterpart a comforting squeeze on his shoulder. "I won't say it wasn't one of the most difficult moments of my life," he admitted. "But you would've went on, for him. Just like I did." There was another flicker of emotion on the younger one's face. Jim's voice gentled. "So how long have you been in love with him?"

That earned him another bitter chuckle. "Not sure exactly when I stopped wanting to punch him and started wanting...uh, other things, but...a while." He shook his head. "It's hopeless."

"What makes you think that?"

"He barely likes me," he said.

"You just said he considered you a friend," Jim countered.

"He can't even be in the same room as me ever since Khan," the younger one continued.

"Which might have more to do with how much he actually cares about you," Jim said.

"And he's already in a committed relationship that isn't with me," he finished.

"Oh." That one was actually something Jim hadn't had to deal with. "T'Pring?"

Jim looked confused. "Nyota Uhura, the Enterprise's Communications officers."

It was the old Jim's turn for his eyes to widen in shock. "Uhura?" he repeated. "Poor Scotty."

" _Scotty_?" Jim laughed but it was less brittle, more genuinely amused. "Seriously? Uhura and Scotty?"

"Different universe," he said, watching as some of the mirth faded from his younger counterpart's eyes. He tightened the hand that still clasped the young man's shoulder. "It took me and my Spock almost ten years to figure out how much we needed each other," he told him. "Don't give up hope now."

"Sure," he said, but Jim could see the desperate hope in his eyes. "Whatever you say."

Jim opened his mouth to chide him but he felt Spock's creeping concern from the other side of the bond. "Come on, my Spock's concerned that we've been in here so long. Mostly I think he's tired of listening to your Bones tell the same stories our Bones used to." The young one snorted. "Let's go save him, okay?"

"Sure," Jim agreed, remembering to grab his glass of water at his older counterpart's pointed look. "Not that I want to hear Bones's stories either."

"Maybe Spock and I can entertain you two for a while," he offered.

Jim grinned, just a little, nodding.

The older Jim soothed away at Spock's concern and promised explanations for later. For now, they had this younger Jim Kirk to distract from his tumultuous emotions and Jim figured they owed the kid enough to give it a try.

**

When McCoy retired for the night, Spock was surprised to see that Jim went with him.

"Bones doesn't mind if i bunk with him for a few days. That way you guys can continue to...reconnect," Jim explained, grinning a little. "And frankly, I think I'd be scarred for life if I had a first-hand view of what you guys have been getting up to _in my bed_."

Spock's Jim tried to hide his laugh behind his hand, but failed miserably as Spock thanked the younger Jim Kirk, once again touched by the young man's kindness. He had given Spock the most miraculous gift he could imagine and continued to be thoughtful of his needs. Much like the other Jim, this young one was a great friend once his loyalty had been earned. Spock simply wished his younger self could see that he, too, had already won so much of his captain's heart.

It turned out that Spock wasn't the only one whose thoughts were on that particular situation. 

"That was certainly interesting," Jim murmured as they settled in bed that evening, drowsy but still too alert for actual sleep. It brought out another pleased ache in Spock's soul, reminding him of so many nights they'd passed in the same manner, quietly listening in the dark as Jim talked himself into slumber, both content because they were together, warm and connected. "Meeting the other you, I mean. He's -- not you."

"Just as the other Jim is not you, for all the echoes I see there," Spock agreed, fingers brushing against skin as they found the line of Jim's throat. 

"And those two together?" Jim chuckled and Spock felt the rumble of it beneath his hand, against his chest. "I just hope to god _we_ were never so over-dramatic."

"Indeed not," Spock said, Jim's humor like tinder to his own. It was easy to be amused when his Jim was there, wrapped in his embrace. "We were more mature and had a more firm of our place in the world than they do. We approached our relationship differently because of that."

"Yes, I'm sure our Bones would agree that that is actually what we had -- a completely mature relationship," Jim teased. "Nothing melodramatic and overwrought about it, like people running off to purge themselves of all emotions."

"Or others stealing and destroying starships as they clung to the barest of hopes," Spock returned.

He was kissed for his comment, long and gentle and warm. "But I was right," Jim said when he drew back. "I found you."

"More than once," Spock agreed, thinking again about how wondrous it was to have Jim at his side. Were there even words to be found to express his elation, his joy, his blessedness at what had been returned to him? Spock didn't believe it and it was another reason to treasure the closeness his Vulcan bond allowed between them, so that Jim could simply feel what Spock did and understand perfectly what he meant to him. Maybe, one day, their younger selves would find some way to communicate the truth that could led to their own joy.

"Hopefully, soon," Jim whispered in reply to Spock's thoughts about their younger selves. "I'm too old for all the suspense if I have to watch them pine for a decade."

It was Spock's turn to chuckle, a purring rumble in his chest, and it followed them both as they slipped into sleep.

They woke early the next morning despite the rather late night, an old habit that not even a century in the Nexus had shook loose from Jim's bones. Still, they had barely finished breakfast when they were alerted to a message from the younger Spock that he had arranged for their meeting with Admiral Nogura at 0700 the next morning. A message from the younger Jim soon followed, offering them any manner of entertainment or guidance he could offer for the day. Spock politely declined for the both of them but thanked the young captain for the thought.

Instead, his Jim settled himself at the comm, determined to acquaint himself with this alternate universe, both the similarities and differences caused by Nero's incursion into the timeline. Spock offered a few key events that might be of particular note, then left Jim to his research, the familiar frown of concentration already on his forehead. It was a side of Jim that few had seen as much as Spock had, especially once he'd left Starfleet and became known for his daring feats -- the scholar at his heart, the curious and deep-thinking mind that had had him called "grim" as a young cadet for the seriousness he'd focused on his studies. While Jim read and processed and frowned at the information before him, Spock used the spare terminal to deal with his own mounting correspondence before he took advantage of the quiet to meditate, reaching a place of serenity he hadn't reached in a century.

It was nearing evening when Spock brought himself back to reality, so full of contentment that he was certain his shields, as strong as they were, would be inadequate if he were to face another telepath. Good thing, he decided, that his plans included no one other than Jim, who he found where he had left him, frowning down at the computer screen as he read. 

There was something different, though, and Spock immediately recognized it. Jim was shielding his thoughts in the only way he really knew how, a deliberate blanking of his mind, a mental version of a 'poker face' expression. Spock didn't want to pry but he could feel the tension behind the blank veneer, simply holding back something more turbulent. He crossed the room and laid his aged hands on Jim's still-strong shoulders, feeling the slight loosening in them that he took as permission to peer down at whatever had affected Jim so deeply. It wasn't what Spock had expected.

Jim was reading some news feed that carried bulletins from many Federation colonies, mostly a mishmash of mundane events and advertisements that most Terrans probably ignored on a daily basis. Jim had probably read it to get a feel for what the colonies were like in this universe, gleaning the kind of patterns and insights from them that most wouldn't. What he had found, though, among these inconsequential news items was one for a small, Federation-aligned colony that hadn't even been given a designation beyond a number but that would be playing host to a small acting troupe for the next ten days. Along with the announcement was a small image, of a bearded man in a tunic and a young girl, her pale, ethereal loveliness apparent even in the blurred capture.

The acting troupe was, of course, the Karidian Company of Actors.

"Jim," Spock said as his hands tightened on Jim's shoulders, the one word enough to express everything Spock felt -- his sorrow and concern, his love and his selfish gladness that Jim had survived the attempts both times Kodos had almost snatched him from life.

Even after fifty years of living and the absolute knowledge that his tormentor was dead, the reminder of Tarsus IV brought emotion to Jim's throat, making his voice rough when he finally spoke. "I've never been a fan of time-travel and this is why." He touched his fingers to the screen. "He's out there, Spock. Right now."

"The Kodos that you knew is dead and has been for many years," Spock reminded him.

"But the Kodos who did the same things to the other Kirk is out there, right _now_ ," Jim told him. "And no one knows but us."

"We're not supposed to interfere," Spock said.

"How have you done it?" Jim asked, turning a little in his seat to meet Spock's eyes. "How have you remained faithful to non-interference?"

Spock settled himself next to Jim before he answered. Jim leaned into him, as if he needed the support or the warmth Spock's body offered. "It is often difficult and I have been far from perfect with my adherence," he admitted. "I have made choices to interfere when I thought the needs were such that non-interference would've been the larger sin. And I have tried to limit myself to only certain spheres for it, such as offering guidance to my younger self. I have also made the decision to focus on New Vulcan, which was not a problem we faced in our own timeline. There, it is easier to help in earnest without fear of what my actions could do."

Jim nodded slowly, absorbing Spock's words. "It's not as if I'm ignorant of the ways in which anything I might do could do more harm than good. But then there's things like this. _Kodos_. In two different universes, he's a mass-murderer and in both of them he's been allowed to go free for too long. His daughter, just like her father, a murderer with the blood of innocents on her hands."

"Lenore Karidian hasn't killed anyone at this date," Spock said. 

"Not yet," Jim said. "But who's to say that the machinations of this new timeline don't mean she starts killing earlier? Really we can't even say with certainty that she hasn't already killed someone."

"You are correct," Spock told him. "But what would you do about this situation, Jim? And others like it?"

"I don't know," he admitted. He reached for Spock's hand and Spock allowed it, a gentle human handclasp that offered connection and comfort. "Part of me knows that I shouldn't do anything. Another part wants to hop on a ship and go to that backwater little colony and drag Kodos back here in chains to face the justice he eluded in my own life. To see Lenore locked away before she can kill Tom or hurt Kevin." His fingers tightened around Spock's. "Mainly, I feel like I need to do _something_ ; inaction has never sat well on me."

Spock did know, most intimately. "Jim, I cannot tell you what to do. The few occasions I've tried to guide your actions beyond simple advice have all failed fantastically." As he'd hoped, his words drew a watery laugh from his mate. "You must decide how you can live in this new world. There is no way back to our old one, so we must make do. If you believe that you should use what you know to aid the Federation, then that is what you should do, even if it's not what I've chosen."

Although Spock didn't speak of it, Jim must've felt it in their bond, Spock's secret concern that Jim would see them separated, even as their second chance was upon them, because he leaned forward and kissed him, a quick press of lips, before he let his forehead rest against Spock's. "That's not what I'm talking about at all," he said. "I'm never leaving your side again, Spock. I'm going back to New Vulcan with you, come hell or high water."

"Your determination delights me," Spock said, reaching up to brush his thumb against the delicate skin beneath one of Jim's hazel eyes. 

Jim let out a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's amazing how even after everything, Kodos gets to me. The only person who's ever gotten to me like that is Khan. I'm glad he's already neutralized in this universe so I don't have to worry about him."

"I know," Spock said. "If I could take away the pain you still have over Tarsus, I would gladly bear it for you."

"You've done more than you know," Jim promised. "You've saved my sanity more than I've ever thanked you for."

"I could say the same quite easily," Spock told him. He took Jim by the elbows and gently pulled him to his feet as Spock rose. It left him in a better position to wrap his arms around him. "You did, in fact, literally put me back together, saving my body and katra in the process."

"I think those Vulcan priests had a little something to do with it," Jim said, although he was smiling a little. "Bones, too."

Spock merely kissed him quiet, letting the contentment that he still held within him seep across their bond. "You will make your decision and it will be the right one, I'm sure," Spock told him. "But, for now, I would turn our attention to other matters."

"Other matters, Mr. Spock?" Jim asked, eyebrow raised, as he closed the distance between their mouths until the words were breath shared between them. "I'm all yours."

**


	7. Chapter 7

The younger Spock arrived bright and early to escort the two of them to meet with Admiral Nogura, standing stiffly in the middle of Kirk's apartment as he waited for Jim to shrug into his crimson uniform jacket. Jim had actually spent a bit of time trying to decide on what he would wear on his first venture outside of the safety of his counterpart's home, but the idea of meeting Nogura -- any Nogura -- in anything other than his uniform hadn't sat right with him. So Jim had set aside the civilian attire that the young Kirk had replicated for him and donned his cleaned and pressed uniform instead, although he left off the Starfleet insignia pin, lest he offend someone. His Spock, who wore dark Vulcan robes, raised an eyebrow as he watched Jim fiddle with his collar one more time before the three of them headed out the door.

"None of that from you," Jim chided him. "Some of us don't roll out of bed looking regal and dignified."

The fact was, while Jim knew that it had been Christopher Pike who had mentored the James Kirk of this universe, it had been Heihachiro Nogura who had mentored _him_ , taking him under his wing once Jim had finally decided on Starfleet as a career. Even though this Admiral Nogura would know none of that history, Jim refused to meet his mentor in any state that wasn't completely professional and respectable.

Nogura's yeoman was at her post bright and early as well, ushering the odd trio into the man's office with a cool smile to where the sharp-eyed admiral waited, immediately sizing up the elder men who accompanied his officer.

"Ambassador Spock," Nogura said with a nod at the older one, his greeting making it clear that he was thoroughly briefed on Spock's existence -- as they had expected. His eyes took in Jim for a long moment before he added, "...and Captain Kirk, I presume? Please, gentlemen, have a seat."

Both Jim and Spock did so, while the younger Vulcan chose to stand near the back of the office and Nogura seemed content to let him, his dark eyes intent on the two sitting in front of him. "The Commander has briefed me," he announced. "But I want to hear the story from you, Kirk. Exactly how did we get lucky enough that we have another James T. Kirk on our hands?"

Since Nogura knew about Nero and Spock, Jim went straight to the point of his own tale, starting with the events on Enterprise-B which had stranded him in the Nexus, before he touched briefly on his escape on Veridian III and more heavily on the encounters with the younger Kirk in the Nexus. He ended with his return to corporeal form, "barely forty-eight hours ago," he finished. "This has been quite a shock for me, too."

Nogura was frowning as his eyes darted to Commander Spock. "Why didn't your Captain report what was happening to him?" he asked.

"I believe that the younger Captain Kirk kept both his counselor and his medical doctor apprised of his experiences," Jim's Spock interjected before the younger one had a chance to open his mouth. "But since there was no proof of what he claimed, I assume they both considered these so-called dreams as byproducts of his trauma recovery."

"An astute assumption," Nogura said. "But why isn't he here with you two today?"

"He's still on medical leave, sir," the younger Spock said. "It was decided that his leave status meant that any official actions needed to be taken by someone else. As his second-in-command, I..."

"...stepped right in, yes, of course." Nogura was obviously used to the particular dynamic of the Kirk-Spock command team if his sly, hidden smile was any indication. 

"I can offer numerous evidence to verify Captain Kirk's story and his confirmed identity as an alternate version of James Kirk. I sent them to you this morning," the young Spock said.

"That was never really the question, Commander, I assure you." Nogura turned his attention back to Jim. "Now that we've debriefed, such as we can given certain temporal restrictions, the real question is on the table -- what are we going to do about you?"

"You're going to file this meeting, the Commander's evidence, help me establish my identity and then let me go on my merry way," Jim told him. "Due to those, ah, temporal restrictions you mentioned, you really have no other recourse."

"There's always protective custody," Nogura said. "Further debrief."

"Neither of those would seem necessary given precedent," Jim said, with a vague wave at his silent bond mate.

"Things are a little different now than they were, even after Nero," Nogura said. "We've been faced with two terrible incursions that have rocked this institution to its core. Foreknowledge of other such events might prove invaluable."

"Or it might prove your doom, Admiral," Jim reminded him. "This timeline is vastly different from my own timeline. Any information I give you might have the opposite effect that you desire. It could hasten Starfleet into another crisis that it's not ready for."

They locked eyes for a moment before Nogura gave a slow nod, his thin lips stretching into something of a smile. "That is the exact argument I made when we first found out about the second Spock there."

Jim grinned in relief. "I'd expect nothing else of the great Admiral Nogura."

"Knew me in your timeline, did you?" he asked.

Jim nodded. "More importantly, you knew me. Sometimes better than I knew myself," he added, thinking of V'Ger and Nogura's concerns about Jim's misplaced priorities. He'd been right, too.

"Part of me does loathe losing what might amount to a crystal ball and for the second time, too, but the directives are clear on the subject and you're right, Captain -- this is a very different universe. Vulcan's loss made sure of that."

"Yes," Jim agreed, Spock's pain fresh along the connection of their bond. "Its loss is incalculable."

Nogura picked up a padd on his desk and quickly entered some data before he handed it off to Jim, who saw that it was documentation of his existence and Nogura's assertion that he should be left alone and protected by the Starfleet regulations he had once served. "Just needs your signature, Captain -- well, Mr. Kirk," he said. "I can give you your freedom, but your rank might be a bit much."

"I'm retired anyhow," Jim said, adding his signature and comments.

"It'll take a few days to get everything straightened out but I'll make it a priority," Nogura promised. He looked Jim up and down. "I'll admit it makes me feel a little better about the young one if you're what he might grow into."

"I appreciate the flattery but you've got a very good Jim Kirk on your side already, if I can say so," Jim told him. "He's young but don't count him out."

"He's already showed me that more times than I can count," Nogura admitted, taking the padd back from Jim. "Anything else, gentlemen?"

"Actually, one more." Jim's words surprised both Spocks but he ignored their curiosity as he handed over a small datachip to Nogura. The Admiral frowned. "Information that you should probably act on in all haste," Jim warned him.

Nogura looked at the datachip like it was a snake. "I thought we both agreed that knowledge of the future was a double-edged sword best left alone?"

"That is about the past, not the future," Jim explained. "In both my universe and this one, Kodos the Executioner murdered thousands of people and got away with it, everyone believing him dead. But what I know and what's on that chip is the truth of the fact that he didn't die and he's now living under an assumed identity without any payment for his crimes. It's the same identity he was living under in my timeline when he tried to kill me and the other survivors of the massacre who'd seen his face."

Nogura paused for a moment before he took the datachip. "Will this be the first and last time you decide to go against your better sense?"

"Probably not," Jim said. "I don't hope to make a habit of it but it might not be the last time you hear from me. If it's important enough."

"I know you're retired but we do have a little-known reactivation clause in Starfleet," Nogura said. "I'd be glad to see what I can do about that rank if you want to come back."

Jim laughed, thinking about the day he'd come to his Nogura's office, begging for Bones's reactivation. "Thanks but no thanks," he said. "Feel free to drop me a letter if you'd like but send it by way of New Vulcan where I'll be with my bond mate."

Nogura's eyebrows rose. "Commander Spock did not mention _that_ in his summation," the admiral said.

Said commander was obviously trying not to squirm in discomfort under the admiral's gaze. "It was irrelevant," he finally said.

"Of course it was," Nogura said as he rose to his feet. He offered Jim his hand to shake. "I'll be touch in a few days," he promised.

Jim took a moment to let the familiar rush of fondness hit him when he looked at this other Nogura. It was a lot like seeing the other Bones, nostalgia and sadness and affection all at once. "Thank you, sir."

It had barely taken them an hour to clear Jim's existence with Starfleet, so it was still morning-cool and light when they stepped out of the building. Jim figured his younger self would be pretty impressed with what they'd pulled off and he planned to alert him as soon as he could, which he did immediately, via text message on Spock's personal comm. 

When he looked up from his message, he noticed that his Spock was thanking the younger one for his help but there was still something too-stiff in the way the young Spock stood, in the focus of his dark eyes on his counterpart. 

"As I said, someone needed to step in since Jim's medical leave status meant that he could not act officially," Spock was saying. "Therefore, I was the logical choice."

"Got to hand it to logic," Jim said as he tucked away the communicator. "I don't know about you two but all that talking has left me famished and I skipped breakfast. What do you say? One of you will have to treat me since I don't technically exist, although I could always hack the kid's credits. I'm technically James T. Kirk as much as he is."

"Of course, Jim," his Spock said. "I am hungry as well."

"How about you?" he asked the younger Vulcan.

"Actually..." the younger Spock began, faltering a little before he rallied. "I had hoped to speak with my counterpart about something. In private." He shot Jim an apologetic look.

The bond allowed Jim and Spock to exchange their thoughts and feelings almost immediately. "I guess that's a rain check then," Jim finally said when Spock made it clear he wanted to hear what his younger counterpart had to say. "I'll head back to Jim's apartment and wait for you there."

"Can you find your way safely?" the young one asked.

Jim laughed. "I lived here for more years than you've been alive," he reminded him. "Even with some changes, I'll figure it out."

_Are you sure about this?_ Jim asked Spock along the bond as he began to walk away, leaving the two Vulcans alone.

_Yes,_ his mate assured him. _He has something he feels he must say and I'm curious. I will not be long. Then, we will plan for our future together._

It was an exhilarating thought that kept catching Jim off-guard but this time he held onto it. That, along with the lightening of his heart over his decision about Kodos left him feeling like he was the one who was barely thirty with his entire life ahead of him.

The fact was, he was realizing, that he might not have been thirty anymore, but he did have years and years ahead of him, years he could finally spend with Spock.

He couldn't think of a better future.

**

Spock had not even realized that he planned to speak privately his older counterpart until he had opened his mouth and made the offer. Once he'd spoken the words, though, he thought it had been the correct decision. He did have things he wanted to say to this other Spock, questions he wanted to demand answers for. The anger he had first felt drummed up in him after he had realized that the alternate Kirk and Spock were bondmates rose quickly to the surface as he watched the older Kirk shoot the elder Vulcan one last affectionate look over his shoulder before he finally disappeared around a corner. Spock also knew the emotions that followed close behind it weren't ones worthy of a Vulcan but he felt them nonetheless: jealousy that this Spock had won his Kirk's heart, resentment at the unfairness of his universe that he could not. All three emotions focused on the older Vulcan who stood watching his face as if he could read every thought that crossed the young one's mind, despite the impassive expression on his face.

"You wished to speak?" he asked.

"Not here," he said. "My quarters are not far away."

The other Spock nodded and gestured for him to lead. Spock did so, although he matched his pace to the more sedate one set by his counterpart. He didn't want to speak before he reached the walls of his quarters to safeguard the privacy of the words he wanted to hurl at his elder, but his mind replayed the meeting they had just left and, once he could ignore the discomfort he had felt from Nogura's reaction to the news of the others' bond, Spock remembered something he had wanted to ask about. "Your Kirk..." he began.

"Yes?"

"He lived through Tarsus," Spock said with sudden sympathy for the older man. He had not spent much time with his captain's alternate but he assumed that he was similar enough that a good opinion of him was a logical one to have. To think that the intelligent, commanding man he'd seen thus far had lived through such a horror evoked emotion. "I assume it was comparable to the history of ours?"

"Nearly so," Spock agreed. "Down to the fact that your Jim Kirk lived through it as well."

Spock nearly stumbled in surprise. "That was not in his files," he said. What had been a general sort of commiseration at the thought of the alternate Kirk enduring Tarsus became a pointed pain when he thought it of his own Jim Kirk.

"The information is sealed, for his own protection," the elder explained. "To protect the identities of the seven who lived who had seen Kodos's face."

Spock understood the necessity of the cover-up, although he wondered what else he didn't know about Jim. "He never mentioned it," Spock finally said.

The older Vulcan spared him a sharp look. "Perhaps if you made the effort, he would learn to trust you with these things."

Spock fought against a scowl that he wanted to send back in the face of the Vulcan's criticism. "Statements such as those are why I wanted to speak," he said as they reached the building in which Spock's quarters were located. There were no more words between them as they entered the small apartment and every privacy lock Spock could engage was set. There would be no interruptions, short of an emergency, Spock decided. 

But now that he should've been speaking, the words were no longer as easy to say as he had thought.

The old Spock's eyebrows rose in what Spock wondered was a subtle mockery. "You wished to speak to me," the old man said. "I await your words."

It helped stoke the anger that Spock felt in his gut -- the anger he had tried to ignore every time it had caused him to bash Khan's face in over and over with his fists. Apparently it had been banked, but not truly smothered in the time since. "You say that you do not wish to unduly influence my life and yet you do it at every turn," Spock said, almost spitting the words. "You say that I need to find my own path and yet you constantly try to place me on yours. You offer lies in the guise of advice, turning the direction of my life in ways that cannot be undone and I am the one left to deal with the consequences." He took a deep breath and tried to ignore the hitch of the action. "These are my words. And my question: I want to know why you've done this to me."

The other Spock frowned at his words but did not seem moved by the anger behind them. "I may have given you more information than I should've but I never lied to you, Spock."

"Your great friendship with James T. Kirk?" he asked. "You do not call that a lie?"

"No," the older Spock said. "We were friends."

"You were _bondmates_ ," Spock argued. "Are, in fact, still bonded. You mislead me in presenting your relationship as simple friendship. You deceived me."

"Even if I was not as forthcoming as I might've been, what injury do you think it caused you?" his counterpart demanded to know. "I am curious of the source of your anger, given that you say you count the captain as your friend."

"Is the lie itself not enough to feel anger over?" he asked. 

"Not to the extent you carry it," the older Spock said. "You say I have wronged you; I demand that you explain how."

"You knew what you felt for your Jim Kirk. You knew what I would be capable of feeling for him because of your own intimate history." Spock resisted the urge to touch a hand to his chest where everything felt pained and hollow when he thought of the depth of his regard for Jim and how it would never be returned. "You knew and you set me toward him and I now...I find that we are not so different in this -- except that I am not you and my Jim isn't yours and I am left here to _feel_ what will never be reciprocated."

He watched as the older Spock's eyes widened a fraction, just enough to count as a change in expression. Then, the weathered lines of his face softened. "All this because you have realized that you love Jim?" the old man asked, voice suddenly as soft as his expression.

Both made Spock turn away. "It was badly done of you, to do this to me," he said. "Better that you had left me alone, to join the colony as I had planned. Better never knowing than what I live with now."

"That is false, young one, even if you cannot see it," the older Spock said. "It is one thing about which I am certain. No matter the universe -- and I have seen a few outside of my own and this one -- you are meant to be at Kirk's side. And through him alone do you learn enough about yourself to earn the kind of peace you crave. This, I truly believe. Were you never more than friends, were you to feel this unrequited pangs for the remainder of yours days, you would still need him."

The older Spock spoke confidently and Spock could do nothing but accept his words as wisdom or folly as he saw fit. Too difficult, he realized, to dismiss centuries of experience and certainty as folly. "Even so," he conceded. "You could've warned me, so that I would know to take caution against this situation."

"That was what I could not do," Spock disagreed. "You asked me, why, Spock, why I did what I did. I have told you part of it -- that I believe that there is no better place for you than with Jim. But I had other reasons for the actions you find so vile. Suppose I had told you of my bond with my Jim, when you barely knew Jim, when you were not even sure you liked him at all. How would you have reacted?"

"Not well," Spock admitted.

"Indeed," the elder said. "And there was Uhura to think of, as well. How would you take the knowledge that this relationship you so cherished did not exist for me? That it might be transient and illusory when faced with the prospect of what you might have with Kirk. I worried that the truth would sway you incorrectly on both accounts. What if you were meant for Uhura and I destroyed it with my revelations? What if you were meant for Kirk and you refused it, because of my words? Better that I remained silent, even if you call it deceit."

"This is why your Kirk dislikes time travel so much," he said. "The implications are more far-reaching with every word you speak."

"It is a delicate matter," the old one agreed. "But I had to correct the damage I had already done. When I met Jim and he told me you hated him? That you marooned him on Delta Vega? I knew it was only through events wrought by Nero and myself could this be true. But the timeline, even then, was striving to fix itself."

"What do you mean?"

The old Spock smiled, just a little. "How else do you explain that all of you -- you, Jim, Leonard, Uhura, Scott, Chekov, Sulu -- all ended up together, despite everything? It was more than coincidence, I believe."

Spock was not ready to believe in some larger force that pushed them all together, at least not one outside of his manipulative counterpart who stood watching him with calm eyes. "Even if your intentions were good, that does not spare me of the consequences," he reminded him. "I...and Jim does not feel the same. I am left to struggle with this and I do not wish to."

"I do not think it is quite the struggle you think it must be," his elder said. "Do you look at Jim and not see? Do you hear his words but not listen? You are slower than I ever imagined if you do not believe that your Jim cares for you."

Spock was already shaking his head. "He told me that we are friends," he said. "Nothing more."

"As he died, did the word 'friends' pass his lips?" the old Spock demanded. "I do not wish to break a confidence that I have been entrusted with but I offer you more advice, Spock: do not dismiss Jim's feelings as mere friendship unless you are certain."

"I..." Spock didn't want to feel the desperate claw of hope in his chest, but he did, even as he reminded himself that his counterpart was not to be trusted. "You are trying to deceive me again."

"There would be no purpose in that, Spock," the ambassador said. "You care about Jim and I doubt you could ever imagine leaving his side, at least not permanently. My mission, as you might call it, has been successful. Why would I lie?"

"I do not know," he said. "Lying is illogical."

"Especially when you do it to yourself," the older Spock told him. "I don't speak of my future or my past when I tell you to make certain of what Jim feels before you dismiss him. I speak only of what is truly logical in the situation."

"I...will try," Spock said and it was all he could promise. Could he trust this other version of him not to lead him astray once more? Would listening to Jim's words really give him further insight that had escaped him thus far?

"If we are finished here, I would return to Captain Kirk's," the old Spock said and the younger one made no move to stop him. "My Jim is waiting for me, after all."

"After all," Spock repeated.

The old Vulcan touched his shoulder as he passed, the way a father or grandfather might. Spock felt a wave of compassion sweep over him, a wave of calm that he hadn't felt since Jim had almost died. "I think you should rest and meditate on what I've said," he said. "Then you might find your answers. Good luck, Spock."

And then Spock was left alone with his emotions and sad, wild kindling of hope, left alone to sort out what he barely understood himself. 

In the end, despite his better judgment, he did as his elder had bid and meditated on it.

**

Jim had never looked forward to any of his meetings with Dr. Noel but he was looking forward to this one -- had been, in fact, ever since he'd gotten the message from his counterpart that their meeting with Nogura had went well.

And, more importantly, had been logged into his files.

The downward arc of Dr. Noel's mouth as soon as he took his seat told him that she'd been contacted by Admiral Nogura.

"Lovely day, isn't it, Dr. Noel?" he said, leaning back against the chair.

Dr. Noel sighed and picked up her padd. "I assume you know the contents of the email I recently received from Admiral Nogura."

"Oh, I have some idea," he said. "I mean, I hate to say I told you so but..."

"You really don't," she said.

"You're right," he said. "Nothing I like better than to be proven right."

She was still frowning. "My concerns weren't about belittling you, Jim. It was about helping you cope with the things that have happened to you."

Jim took a deep breath and stopped the smartass comment that was on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he tried to explain. "See, the thing is? I'm coping fine," he told her. "Just like I've coped fine with the other things that have happened to me."

"Like Tarsus?" she asked. "You came back and spent something like ten years getting into every kind of trouble you could."

"Not the best decision I've ever made but I dealt with it," he said. "We all have personal autonomy and personal responsibility in this society. You don't get to judge my actions because you don't agree with them."

"You're not ever going to cooperate, are you?" she asked.

"I feel like I'm doing a bang-up job," he said. "Especially since you won't even acknowledge the fact that your biggest concern about my stability turned out to be completely wrong. My dreams weren't some kind of manifestation of my inability to accept what was happening to me. It was, literally, my alternate future self reaching out to me for help."

"You're right," she said. "You were right and I was wrong." She raised an eyebrow. "Does that help?"

"A little," he said. "No more of these meetings would help more."

Sadly, Jim couldn't wriggle out of all of his mandated therapy but he did get it cut down to once a week for the next four weeks, with the promise of it being cut to twice a month after that if he behaved and stopped sneering at the therapeutic process. He refrained from making any promises but when Dr. Noel dangled carrots like "light duties" in front of him, he was willing to give it a try, at least.

With Dr. Noel properly put in her place and his counterpart's existence squared with Starfleet, Jim was feeling pretty good, as long as he didn't let himself think about Spock. Which he did constantly, just like he'd been doing before the other Kirk had showed up, so it wasn't exactly a new occurrence. But now instead of just wondering why Spock had confessed to be his friend and then had disappeared off of Jim's planet the first chance he got, Jim got to remember the look of complete horror that had crossed his usually-impassive face at the realization that the other-them were bondmates. It continued to be the same mood killer it had been for the last few days.

In fact, by the time Jim had run his errands for the afternoon, got himself some dinner and met up with Bones for a few drinks at the local dive after his friend's shift , the good spirits he'd gotten from finally getting a chance to put Dr. Noel in her place had disappeared almost completely.

"Oh god," Bones said, as soon as he saw the look on Jim's face. "There's not enough alcohol on this planet to make me want to put up with _that_."

"What?" Jim asked, the neck of his beer bottle held innocently between his fingers.

"Whatever put that look on your face," Bones said. "Which I'm guessing is probably a Vulcan, about yea-high with a thing for logic."

Jim didn't deny it, although Bones's familiar crankiness brought a shadow of a smile to his face. "What if I buy?" he asked.

Bones crossed his arms, considering. "Why the hell not?" he finally said. "I don't have anything better to do anyway."

God, Jim loved Bones, sometimes to distraction. He was the best friend he'd ever had and the closest thing he'd counted as family for years. He didn't know what he'd do without him. "You start," he said. "How was work, honey?"

Bones's litany of complaints were colorful and entertaining; Jim let them wash over him, pushing all of his own unhappiness to back of his mind at least for a while. But then Bones started to run out of stories and his face settled into that stubborn look of concern that usually meant Jim needed to dodge hypos. "So a few hours ago, you were crowing about your victory over me, Helen and the medical establishment," Bones began. "And now you're practically crying into your beer. What did Spock do now?"

"Nothing!" Jim protested. At Bones's pointed look, he relented. "Nothing _new_. Just keep thinking about it, I guess. I wished I hadn't tried to make any dying confessions about my feelings. I almost wish I hadn't had to save my other self just so I could see just how much better he had it than I did. I wish I didn't feel like a fourteen-year-old _girl_ for actually saying any of that."

"I've got fourteen-year-old cousins who handle their love lives a hell of a lot better than you do," Bones told him. "Don't insult them with the comparison."

Jim snorted.

"I'm just saying," Bones said. "You've been twisting yourself in knots over Spock for months now. It's not like anything's changed. He's still with Uhura and you're still...right where that leaves you."

"God, you're horrible at this," Jim said with affection. Bones rolled his eyes. "I know you're right, Bones. But it feels different. After Khan. After the other Kirk showing up. Now that he knows that in some other universe, some version of me was good enough for him."

"Jim," Bones said, his eyes stricken even in the dim light of the bar. "There's not any universe where you're not good enough for him. Probably too good for him, by my reckoning. You're being ridiculous, you know."

"I know," he agreed. "But I keep coming back to it -- that other Kirk, everything went his way. And I could barely catch a break for the first 25 years of my life."

"That's why you're captain of the Enterprise years before he was, why you were able to save your planet from a threat that the future couldn't stop, not to mention that superhuman madman," Bones reminded him. "Don't sell yourself short, Jim, because the mountain you climbed was steeper. That makes you the better one, if you ask me."

"Blind loyalty is a great thing," he teased. "Thanks, Bones."

"And..." Bones paused. "Don't sell Spock short, either. I know he's going through some kind of Vulcan nervous breakdown at the moment but give him a little time. He didn't die but everything that happened with Khan wasn't easy for him, either."

"I know. It wasn't easy for any of you."

"But he took it the hardest," Bones told him. "You didn't see him, Jim, not like I did, like Uhura did. When you died and he realized..." Bones shook his head. "I hadn't seen him that angry since you pissed him off on purpose when his mom died. Uhura had to beg him to stop to keep him from bashing Khan's head in and he only stopped to save you."

Jim didn't like to think of Spock hurting like that, even as it gave him hope that not everything was screwed between them. Even if things were awkward for a while, surely Spock would still be his friend on the other side of it? Jim hoped so. "If only I didn't have to die to see he gives a damn," he said. "I'd really prefer to avoid a repeat performance any time soon."

"He's an emotionally stunted Vulcan who spent most of his life being told that having a feeling was the right up there with committing mass murder on a scale of bad things to do. Maybe you just need to give him some time to process, even if you don't need it."

"I just keep wanting things to go back to normal," Jim told him. "Even if it wasn't perfect, it was workable. Now..."

"Normal, such as we call it, will take a while, probably longer than you'd like. But we'll all get there, Spock included," Bones promised him. "You just need to focus on dealing with your own issues and leaving Spock to deal with his."

"If you say so, Dr. McCoy," Jim said. He glanced down at Bones's empty whiskey glass. "Another? You've earned it."

Bones grinned. "Hey bartender!" he yelled and Jim decided to spend the rest of the evening being grateful for what he did have and not quite so worried about what he didn't. He was alive, he had great friends like Bones and he hadn't completely wrecked his career yet, despite giving it a damn good try. Most people would've been thrilled with that but, of course, most people weren't him.

Still, Jim figured it was enough to work with, at least for the night. And he'd be there when Spock, as Bones had suggested, was ready to deal with everything that had passed between them in that engine room. 

Jim just hoped it was sooner rather than later, for his own sanity and Bones's.

**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, true story, I lost my file of this after my last update and it was a sad, pathetic sight to watch a grown woman cry over a lost text file. I finally recovered enough from that trauma to work on recovering it from bits of emails and drafts sprinkled all over the internet. Thankfully, I was able to, hence the update. :)


	8. Chapter 8

One thing that had remained the constant between the two universes he'd had to call his own was that Starfleet remained renowned in its efficiency. It had been one of the things that had impressed Spock as a youth, that something so fundamentally non-Vulcan could be as precise and efficient as anything he'd found on his home planet. He was glad to see that for all the trials that the Starfleet in this new universe had faced, it had not lost its dedication to peak operation.

"Well look at that," Jim said a few days after their meeting with Admiral Nogura, looking through the packet of identification documents the Admiral had had delivered to the young Jim's apartment. It was everything Jim would need to move forward in their new life legally and without concern. "He even let me keep my name."

Jim was still James T. Kirk, although his birth date was now thirty years earlier to match his current age. Given the family resemblance, the name and the shared birthplace, Spock wouldn't be surprised if people who met Jim came to assume he was an uncle of the younger Jim. When he shared that thought with Jim, he smiled. "It's strange to be old enough to be your own father, but it's interesting, I'll give you that. Jim is a very interesting young man."

Spock could hear the affection in his bond mate's voice. "You're fond of him," he noted. "In a familial sort of way."

"I guess I am," Jim admitted. "I liked him immediately when we met in the Nexus. And he's been nothing but kind since. I can't help but think..." Jim paused and set aside the documents he'd been examining. "People want children for a lot of reasons; one of them, so something of themselves carry on after them. They want to see themselves reflected in their children. I never got that with David." So many years in between and still the bond trembled with Jim's grief, his regret. "He was amazing but he was all Carol. I was lucky to get to know him at all. And we didn't have enough time together."

"I grieve with thee," Spock said, offering the balm of his touch. Jim accepted.

"I know," he said, fingers tightening around Spock's. "Jim's not my son, obviously. He's _me_ but he's different enough that it's not like looking in a mirror exactly. I guess, in many ways, he's the son I would've wanted, had I given it much thought. Enough like me that we could relate but different enough as well." He shook his head. "I'm not sure I'm explaining it well but yes, I'm fond of him."

Spock did understand, although he didn't feel the same attachment to his younger self. He felt something he would count as familial but it wasn't as strong as what Jim described. But then, both Jims were emotive and passionate. If they felt anything for each other, it would've been strong, whether it was negative or positive. "I believe Jim reciprocates your affection," he said. "I think he would even welcome the comparison, even though it might embarrass him. He has not had an easy time of it with male family figures."

"His father, Captain Pike," Jim said in agreement. "I won't push but I do hope he wants to stay in touch."

"I do not think you need to be concerned on that point," Spock promised. "He is very good at it."

Jim smiled as he turned his attention back to the documentation. "That's it, I'm free and clear," he said. "When do you want to head back to New Vulcan?"

It still felt like a dream that Spock would have this, Jim returned to him, ready and willing to join him on the new life path he had chosen, one dedicated to his people in way he'd never been in his own universe. If he'd been younger and more emotional, his hands would've shook with his disbelief, even as one of them was still wrapped around Jim's. "As soon as I can arrange it, unless you have more business on Earth," he said.

"I have exactly no business anywhere, except with you," Jim said. "Although once we get to the colony, I expect a thorough briefing on what's going on and how I might help. Retirement's great and all but you know I can't stand to be idle."

"I would never dream of such an occurrence," Spock deadpanned. "Especially if I hope to accomplish any of my own work."

Jim's laughter was loud in the quiet of the room, but a most welcome sound. "Don't think I didn't hear what you really meant there, Mister," he told Spock. "I'm wise to your ways."

"After so many years, I should hope so," Spock replied, his eyes catching Jim's, soaking in the gentle affection there. After a moment, Jim stood and used his hold on Spock's hand to tug the Vulcan to his feet. Once they were both standing, Jim wrapped his arms around Spock and he couldn't help but respond in kind.

"Spock." Jim's voice was almost a whisper between them, heavy with emotion. "They used to joke about it, other captains, about how lucky I was. I never really believed it until you came back to me from Gol. But it's only now that I see how true it is. I am unbelievably lucky. To have you, to have found you again."

"It is I who is lucky," Spock told him. "I would've been content with your memory for the rest of my life but to have you here, in the flesh...in these last years, I've thought about the time we wasted before. I will not squander this chance."

"Even if I'll sometimes drive you crazy when I'm feeling useless and old?" Jim teased. 

"Especially then," Spock promised, feeling the rumble of Jim's laughter as he took Jim's face in his hands and kissed him. Jim's hands were buried in Spock's robes, demanding more closeness, and Spock obliged, letting Jim pull him as close as they could be and still remain separate beings. Not that they were truly separate, not with their reformed bond pulsing between them. Spock had lived in telepathic silence for so long with only the aching memory of the bond for comfort that it was still the most shocking and delicious experience to have it thrum with life and Jim's thoughts, colors and light where darkness had lain so long. 

"Well aren't we maudlin today?" Jim laughed when their lips finally could bear to be parted.

"Grateful," Spock argued. "Merely grateful for what we've been given."

Jim's smile turned tender. "As always, Mr. Spock, you are correct. I am grateful for so much. Including the fact that you're willing to take on an out-of-work starship captain with too much time on his hands."

"I can promise, Jim, that New Vulcan will offer you challenges enough," Spock told him. 

"As long as you're there, it doesn't matter," Jim said, honesty ringing in every word. "I'll find my way." He basked in the comfort of their embrace for a few beats longer before he pulled away. "So New Vulcan? What's our ETA for departure, you think?"

"I will contact my younger self, as he planned to return with us," Spock told him. "But I am sure that between my connections and his, it will not take more than a few days."

"I'm sure Jim will be glad to have his apartment back once we're gone," Jim said. "It's too bad I can't gift wrap the younger you and leave him here as a thank-you present."

Spock was amused by the image even if he didn't show it on his placid expression. "Perhaps they will find their own way to resolve the tension between them that doesn't involve your intervention, Jim."

"Your intervention hasn't seemed to help as yet," Jim pointed out. "But I'm willing to let fate run its course. It worked for us, in the end."

"Admirably so," Spock agreed. He decided that he wasn't quite ready to end the moment between them and Spock drew Jim back into his arms. Jim didn't protest, letting his hands rest on Spock's chest, palms rising with each of Spock's slow, deep breaths. For all that they shared words between them, they weren't needed, not really, not anymore. The bond let them feel everything they wanted to share without the imprecision of language to obstruct their truest thoughts and Spock was content to hold Jim close and marvel at the times fate had brought the man back to him, no matter what obstacles had been placed in their path. Jim's professional ambitions, Spock's refusal to accept his humanity along with his Vulcan nature; Kohlinar, death, Starfleet, Klingons and the Nexus. They had all tried but they'd never succeeded in breaking them apart for long.

Gratitude to the universe, or "fate" as Jim called it, seemed to be a fanciful idea for a Vulcan but Spock felt it all the same. He had an inkling that it would be the prevailing thought he'd have for the rest of his days, every one in which he woke up to Jim once again at his side. And Jim, he knew, felt the same.

As always, they remained in perfect symphony.

**

Even after days of contemplation and meditation, Spock wasn't closer to the understanding what his older counterpart had said he'd find. If anything, Spock found himself even more confused, both by his own emotions and by any conclusion he tried to draw from Jim's. He knew what the older Spock had intimated -- that Jim's feelings for him went beyond friendship -- but nothing Spock could think of confirmed the old Vulcan's hypothesis. Spock was not certain he was ready to take the risk of speaking to Jim about any of it without more data.

However, circumstances began to conspire against him: the alternate Kirk and Spock were ready to leave Earth for New Vulcan and Spock was expected to leave with them. Not only by the traveling bondmates but by his father and even Jim and Dr. McCoy. However, with every hour that brought him closer to leaving, Spock was less and less willing to do so with everything left so unsettled between himself and his captain. They had barely seen each other since Spock's arrival and although it had been by Spock's design, it made him uncomfortable as some part of him yearned to connect with Jim after their recent separation. Deeper down, there were Spock's fears, both of almost losing Jim to Khan and of losing Jim if he knew the truth of his feelings, but they were now second to his need to speak to Jim, to be near him. 

His indecision was solved for him when he arrived at Jim's apartment, as arranged, to meet with his traveling companions and instead found Jim, _his_ Jim, standing there. 

"Captain," Spock said, unable to stop the tension that snapped his spine straighter. "I was expecting my alternate counterpart."

"He warned me," Jim said, then winced. "I mean, he told me you were on your way over. Come on in."

Spock followed Jim inside, noting that Jim looked well. There was some slight bruising under his eyes as if he hadn't adequate sleep the night before but that was understandable given that he had been staying with Dr. McCoy while their older selves made use of his apartment. Otherwise, he looked completely recovered: there was a healthy flush to his skin and his casual clothing hung on his frame without a sign of lost weight or muscle. Spock dragged his eyes away from the simple flex of Jim's shoulders beneath the thin fabric of his shirt just before Jim turned back to face him. "Are they not here?" Spock asked, speaking of the two whom he had come to meet.

"They went looking for...something, I'm not sure what." Jim shrugged, the skin around his eyes crinkling a little in confusion. "Jim said something about time paradoxes and antique stores. I didn't really catch his meaning. They said they'd be back soon." Jim reached for his padd that lay on a nearby table. "You can sit and wait for them."

"I will not disturb you?" Spock asked.

Jim's ambiguous expression softened into something Spock could more easily read as friendliness. "Of course not, Commander. Grab a chair and take a load off."

Spock refrained from commenting on the nonsensical idiom and took a seat on the sofa across from where Jim lounged -- there was no other word for Jim's posture -- in one of the chairs. They sat in an uncomfortable silence for a moment before Spock hesitantly asked. "I understand that your recovery is almost complete?"

"Yeah," Jim said with a nod. "I've got a clean bill of health from Bones, aside from some PT to build up some muscle and dexterity. I might even have the psych angle handled now that I've proven that I'm not going crazy."

"I never meant to imply that you were," Spock said again. "My counterpart presented the situation in such a manner that I --"

"It's fine, Mr. Spock," Jim assured him. "All forgotten."

Jim went back to flicking his gaze nervously from his padd to Spock and back again, while Spock struggled to decide what to say. He wanted to speak, but he wasn't certain where to begin, not if his ultimate purpose was a conversation about emotions. He opened his mouth and the first thing that came to mind came out of his mouth. "Commander Uhura and I have terminated our romantic relationship."

Jim stilled, eyes wide and very blue as they fixed upon Spock. "I'm sorry to hear that," he finally said. "Are you...all right?"

"It was difficult but necessary," Spock said. "And I am...well, thank you."

"If you need to talk, I'm here," Jim said. "I don't know how much experience you have with being dumped but I am an expert, so I'd be glad to coach you through it or whatever."

Once Spock unraveled Jim's comment, he frowned. "You assume that Uhura was the instigator of the dissolution?"

"Yeah," Jim said slowly. "Am I wrong?"

Spock wondered if this was the chance he'd been looking for. He steeled himself as he answered. "You are, in fact. It was my idea that Nyota and I 'break up,' as you humans say. It would've been wrong to continue our relationship under current circumstances."

"Oh," was all Jim said for a moment. He tilted his head back, studying Spock in the silence. "Well, still. Sorry."

Spock tried to hold on to his earlier determination. "Are you?"

"Am I what?" Jim asked.

"Sorry," Spock said. "Pardon me if I'm incorrect, but I have reason to believe that you would not be unhappy once informed of this change in circumstance."

Something fearful flickered across Jim's face before it disappeared as he raised his hands in the air. "Hey, what kind of person do you think I am? I'm not going to hit on Uhura just because you aren't dating anymore."

Spock knew he could use Jim's misunderstanding to deflect the conversation to safer topics, away from the things he both wanted and feared to say. But that flicker of something deeper that he'd seen on Jim's face made him continue, despite his uncertainty. "That was not what I meant to imply."

"Well what did you mean to imply?" Jim asked.

"That you would have a different reason for not being sorry that I am no longer involved with Nyota."

It seemed impossible but Jim's eyes got wider and his mouth slackened in surprise. He blinked but he didn't look away from Spock's face and Spock wondered what he might see there. He forced himself to relax his hands where they had curled into fists at his side. But he didn't say anything and Spock felt dread creep up his spine. "Perhaps I was mistaken on the fact," Spock managed to say, eyes sliding away from Jim's stunned expression. "Please have my counterpart comm me when..."

"Wait!" Spock had not fully come to his feet before Jim was moving from the chair, taking a firm hold of Spock's arm as he pulled back down to the sofa, to sit next to where Jim now settled. "Spock," he said, sounding breathless. "Are you...? Did you...? I mean..." Jim shook his head, as if to clear it. Spock could find no word for the look in his eyes beyond hopeful. "If I had this other reason," he began slowly. "How would you feel about that?"

"If it were the reason I hoped, I would be...pleased," Spock said, trying to remain focused when everything about Jim was conspiring to distract him -- the feel of his fingers still resting on Spock's arm, the heat of his body so close, the blue depth of his eyes. 

"Pleased?" Jim echoed. His eyes were fixed on Spock, skittering across his face as if they searched for something. Spock didn't know if it was his imagination or not that Jim seemed to sway toward him. "Just pleased?"

"Very pleased," Spock said, even as he found his own eyes drawn to Jim's mouth. 

Jim seemed to notice because his lips twitched, almost a smile. "Spock."

"Yes, Jim?"

The humor faded, but the hope didn't, nor did the earnestness, which reminded Spock of unpleasant memories. Jim's next words didn't help. "I want to tell you why I couldn't let you die." Jim's fingers closed on Spock's arms, squeezing just a little. 

"Because you are my friend?" Spock said and he hadn't meant it to be the question it was. 

Jim swallowed and suddenly Jim was close enough that Spock could feel his breath against Spock's lips. "Not exactly," Jim said. Before Spock could ask for clarification as to what that meant, Jim's mouth was pressed to his, lips warm and wet, and clarification really wasn't needed -- not when Spock would rather put his mouth to more pleasant uses.

When he reached for Jim and deepened the kiss, Jim made a small needy noise in his throat that made Spock's blood burn, made him wonder if it was the closest he'd felt yet to what pon farr might be like. It made Spock pull Jim closer, hands sliding beneath the edge of the thin shirt he wore, unable to stop himself from wanting to touch the warm skin beneath it. Their mouths were moving against each other, refusing to lose their connection and Spock felt Jim's hands on his face, reaching up to skim the roughened pads of his fingers over the tips of Spock's ears. Spock shuddered and finally broke away.

"I've always wanted to do that," Jim said, grinning.

"It would be an exaggeration were I to say "always." However..." Spock was fascinated by the reddened bruised state of Jim's mouth. "It has been prevalent in my thoughts for several months now."

"And that's why you broke up with Uhura," Jim guessed. "Because you wanted to make out with me."

"No," Spock told him, unable to stop himself from touching a thumb to Jim's bottom lip. "Because when I thought I had lost you, I realized that I had been lying to myself about what you meant to me. It was cruel of me to continue to involve myself with Uhura when you were the one I wanted."

Jim's response was to kiss him again. "Christ, Spock. You can't just _say things like that_."

He raised an eyebrow, struggling for dignity when he could feel the flush in his own face, one to match the one he saw on Jim's. "Even if it's true?"

"Probably especially then," Jim said. His smile softened, his expression more serious but no less fond. "Why didn't you say anything before now?"

"I did not think you would welcome any such confession," he admitted.

"That's because you're blind and kind of an idiot," Jim said, but the laughter in his voice blunted the sting of the insult. "I've been half in love with you since the beginning."

"Only half?" Spock asked.

"The rest came later," Jim admitted, almost shy in the way his eyes flicked away as he said it. "I thought you could barely stand me and then I thought we were at least friends and then you up and disappeared right after Khan and I..."

"I wanted to be able to stay at your side, even if you did not feel more than friendship for me," Spock confessed. "I went to Vulcan in the hopes of burying my feelings so they would not interfere. I apologize that my actions caused you pain."

"As long as you don't plan on trying it again," Jim said. 

"No," Spock assured him. "There is no need if you welcome them."

"Oh, I do," Jim said, another quick kiss, almost a nip at Spock's mouth. "I really do." He rested his forehead against Spock's. "You are a very confusing being, you know."

"You are not the first to tell me that." Spock's fingers found their way into Jim's unruly hair, stroking at the soft strands at his nape. It was Jim who then shuddered. "I've been called challenging, as well."

"Good for you I like challenges," Jim told him. He straightened up and his smile was bright enough that it reminded Spock of New Vulcan's blazing sun. "At least I can stop being jealous of the other me now," he laughed. "It didn't seem fair that he got his father _and_ you."

"I admit to similar feelings as well." Spock didn't understand why his words made Jim grin wider. "Especially when he endeared himself so easily to you."

"I wanted advice! About you!" Jim laughed. "He's nice but I prefer _my_ Spock to someone else's."

"I prefer no one else to you," Spock said. 

"Sweet talker," Jim said before he kissed him again. "I guess I'll have to get used to that."

What Spock wanted to get used to was the fact that he could touch Jim as he'd always wanted and so he did, silencing the rest of Jim's ramblings with his mouth applied with precision to various points of Jim's body. Jim didn't seemed to mind, though, and Spock gave in to everything he had been feeling for months, all the emotions he had been wrestling with when it came to Jim. 

As he once again guided his hands along the bare skin of Jim's back, sensing Jim's pleasure through the weak telepathy it offered, Spock felt a lightness seep over him that he hadn't felt before.

Later -- much later -- he'd be able to think well enough to name it for what it was.

Peace.

And not for the first or last time in his long life, Spock would offer a silent thanks to his counterpart, whose human heart had outweighed his Vulcan head so that Spock would have the chance to learn to do the same.

**

(The End)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering that this fic was finished before I started posting it, I have no excuse for taking so long to get it posted. But now I have and I want to give a big thanks to everyone who left comments and kudos on it, despite that.
> 
> This is a complete id-fic, something to make me happy because I couldn't bear the thought of Spock Prime and Kirk Prime not getting a happy ending. For that reason, this fic is not compliant with certain things in STB because they will happily ever after on New Vulcan for decades, damn it! 
> 
> Thanks to everyone for reading and I hope y'all enjoyed it. :)


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